E-mail in zero G: NASA develops network for space

E-mail in zero G: NASA develops network for space

SAN FRANCISCO — In space, no one can hear you scream. But scoring an Internet hookup suddenly isn’t out of the question.

NASA scientists have developed software they hope will lead to an Internet-like network in deep space. It’s not that astronauts will be watching “Alien” on Hulu.com. The goal of the technology NASA has been testing is to get spacecraft to communicate in a networked way like computers now do on Earth. It will make missions easier to manage.

The technology is young at this point: Engineers have been sending images between a spacecraft and computers on the ground that are simulating landers, orbiters and other essential parts of a Mars mission.

Think of the way space communication works now as manual labor. Sending messages between antennas on Earth and antennas on spaceships requires heavy human involvement because of the great distances involved and the method of transmission.

But just as computers handle the heavy lifting of sending e-mail on Earth, NASA wants to have an equally automated system in space.

“It’s like the Internet, only the Internet assumes basically everything’s connected and there aren’t a lot of delays,” said Jay Wyatt, manager of the Space Networking and Mission Automation Program office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “The Internet model kind of breaks down in deep space.”

The space agency has been working for 10 years on the project with Vint Cerf, one of the Internet’s key inventors and now chief Internet evangelist for Google Inc.

The engineers have developed protocols for what they call Disruption-Tolerant Networking (DTN), which they say helps computers on spaceships talk to each other even when they’re so far away that a constant connection can’t be established.

Unlike the TCP/IP protocols that form the Internet’s backbone on Earth, the new protocols adjust for the fact that information might have to be stored for a long time until the intended recipient comes back online. It also includes the capability that the computers might try to find another recipient to keep the information moving, much like Internet traffic can be rerouted on Earth when a server goes down.

NASA plans to test the software next summer on the International Space Station.

Google gives online life to Life mag’s photos

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc. has opened an online photo gallery that will include millions of images from Life magazine’s archives that have never been seen by the public before.

The new service, available at http://images.google.com/hosted/life, debuted Tuesday with about 2 million photos. Eventually, Google plans to scan all 10 million photos from Life’s library so they can be viewed on any computer with an Internet connection.

The new gallery gives Google a head start on Life’s Web site, which is to begin showing off the photo archive in late February. Life will draw upon its editors’ expertise to pick the best shots from the archives.

About 97 percent of Life’s archives have not been publicly seen, according to Life.

The photos can be printed out for free as long as they aren’t being used as part of an attempt to make money. Time Warner Inc., Life’s parent company, hopes to make money by selling high-resolution, framed prints. The orders will be processed through Qoop.com.

Life’s archives include photos from the Civil War as well as some of the most memorable moments from the 20th century, including the Zapruder film capturing John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Google has been indexing a wide variety of information that previously wasn’t available online as part of its efforts to lure even more traffic to its popular search engine. For the past four years, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company has been scanning millions of books stored in dozens of libraries around the world.

The Life partnership represents Google’s biggest undertaking in professional photography. Google hopes to work out similar arrangements with the owners of other large photo archives, said R.J. Pittman, a director of product management.

‘Fake Steve Jobs’ stops blogging as the ‘Real Dan’

SAN FRANCISCO — It was bad enough when Dan Lyons stopped sharing his musings about the technology scene in a hilarious satire of what Apple Inc. founder Steve Jobs would be like as a blogger.

Now there’s more sad news for readers who savored his biting humor: The erstwhile “Fake Steve Jobs” has decided to stop blogging as the “Real Dan Lyons” after he was reprimanded by his bosses at Newsweek magazine for an acerbic remark about Yahoo Inc.

The trouble started Monday evening when Lyons assailed Yahoo for giving him what he believed to be misleading information while he was writing a Newsweek piece last month.

Monday’s announcement that Yahoo founder Jerry Yang had decided to step down as chief executive riled Lyons because Chairman Roy Bostock had assured him just a few weeks ago that Yang “is the right person to continue to lead Yahoo.” That sounded different from this statement Bostock released Monday: “We all agree that now is the right time to make the transition to a new CEO who can take the company to the next level.”

Citing his Bostock interview and other perceived deceptions, Lyons compared Yahoo’s public relations team to dishonest bags of dung — only in much more colorful terms.

After Yahoo complained, his bosses agreed his language wasn’t appropriate for a blog connected to Newsweek, which is owned by The Washington Post Co. Lyons decided to remove the post — as well other potentially offensive entries — to avoid trouble with his new employer (he started writing for Newsweek in September).

Yahoo declined to comment on Lyons’ criticism of the company or its decision to complain to his bosses.

Rather than risk another dustup, Lyons wrote in a Wednesday e-mail that he won’t make any more blog posts. He stopped writing on “The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs” in July.

Lyons played down his decision in his e-mail to The Associated Press.

“The bottom line is I don’t want to jeopardize a job I like [and which feeds my hungry 3-year-old twins] over some blog that’s just a funny little thing I’m doing in my spare time,” Lyons wrote.

Associated Press