The N-Prize

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It was the X-Prize that Burt Rutan’s Spaceship 1 took when it launched into space and recovered.

Google is offering the Lunar X-Prize together with the X-Prize foundation for the first team that lands on the moon and transmits back to earth.

The N-Prize is for a microsat launched into space for a price of under GBP 999,-. The winner will receive GBP 9,999.99 as long as the sat stays up for more than 9 orbits.

In part it’s about pushing boundaries in a bit of a crazy way with some degree of (financial) motivation behind it.

This is an interview with the founder of the prize

Push and Synchronization – Email, Calendar, Address Book

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Synchronica is the one solution I’ve found for synching the iphone.

Winfonie Mobile 2 has been tested and known to work allowing you to synchronise your iphone with lotus organizer 6.1. There are two versions: one for your contacts and one for your calendar. No to do list or notes as the iphone doesn’t support them.

The iphone is starting to look like a business tool after all!

Microsoft Coffee

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There are a couple of *NIX distributions out there that come on a CD with loads of hacking and cracking tool. None is officially released by Microsoft. Untill now. COFEE (Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor) is a USB stick with allegedly over 100 tools and a mouseclick away from hacking your base, some of it by ransacking your live RAM. It’s distributed to law enforcement all over the world, and MS denies that it uses the MS backdoor.

There’s loads more to find out there on Google.

Jet-powered bike is not safe

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Look, if you want to get to work faster, you should drive a car. I know you ride your bike to help save the environment and exercise and all those noble reasons, but let’s be honest: adding jet propulsion to your bicycle kind of defeats both of those purposes.

And really, this bike, which has a WWII-era buzzjet attached, has a better probability of ending your commute with you as a fine paste on a brick wall than a few minutes early to work. But hey, you know, if you’re the adventurous type and you love WWII relics, I guess this is as good a combo as any to suit your needs.

Official URL

Star Wars gets unofficial sequel: Lockheed’s orbital missile barrage system

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Lockheed’s Multiple Kill Vehicle-L space superiority platform promises to be the final word in the event of an intercontinental ballistic missile attack. Part of the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense System, the MKV-L is designed to deal with the multitudinous targets an ICBM launch would provide, rather than take out a single warhead.

ICBMs can be tricky. They act as a far-reaching delivery system for a swarm of smaller warheads — some of which are dummies to confuse opposing countermeasures — that shower a broad area in booms, bangs, fire, and general badness.

The MKV-L would respond with a barrage of its own, firing a pathfinder seeker warhead that would keep track of the number of enemy projectiles and take no prisoners, eliminating every warhead, dummy and even the delivery vehicle. Now that the milestone of a calibrated pathfinder seeker has come and gone, Lockheed is setting its sights on the next step: running tests in a true flight environment in the next year or two, and getting the system online by 2017.

As a quick aside, Lockheed needs to work on its renderings. The odd assortment of bland space balls, cones and cans aren’t really inspiring a lot of confidence in me.

Official URL Link

Origo Industries: Capture your car’s CO2 and use it to re-power your vehicle – and your home

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Origo Industries has developed a system that captures the CO2 from your vehicle’s engine and then allows you to turn these emissions into fuel at your own home to re-power your car. The same fuel could also be used to power your house.

The system uses a revolutionary new approach where CO2 is regenerated through algae in a home unit, allowing the user to produce bio-oil (up to 2500 litres per year tax-free).

Origo Industries: Capture your car’s CO2 and use it to re-power your vehicle – and your home

Let’s hope it’s true!

Data Retention Effectively Changes the Behavior of Citizens in Germany

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The problem with surveillance is not primarily that some bored officer might learn about some embarrassing private detail (although this is a problem as well). The fundamental problem with surveillance is that it changes people. People under surveillance behave differently than people who are not monitored – differently than free people.

Unfortunately, this fundamental problem has just been proven in Germany

Which is yet another of the many many reasons why we should be highly sceptical of government surveilance through CCTV coverage, unfettered wiretapping and other forms of personal monitoring.

US to EU : y’allz a bunch terrurhists, y’hear?

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Apparently the entry requirements for the US will require an electronic registration with the US government at least 3 days before travel. El Reg is there.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/03/us_visa_scheme/.

Keep in mind this is on top of the anal probe, DNA swipe, taking of fingerprints, retinal scan, drug use inquiry and all the other fun stuff potentially awaiting you at the US border *as a citizen of an allied country*. WTF?