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The provisional launch date of space shuttle Atlantis on its STS-125 mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope has been postponed from 10 to 14 October due to the knock-on effects of Hurricane Ike.

Ike forced the closure of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, resulting in a "lost week of training and mission preparation". NASA will confirm a concrete launch date for Atlantis on 3 October.

The delay has also affected the intended launch of Endeavour, due to carry the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the International Space Station on 12 November on mission STS-126. This is now slated for a 16 November blast-off.

STS-125 - the last mission to Hubble - extends to 11 days, during which the Atlantis crew (Commander Scott Altman, Pilot Gregory C. Johnson and Mission Specialists Andrew Feustel, Michael Good, John Grunsfeld, Mike Massimino and Megan McArthur) will carry out five spacewalks.

Full story @ TheRegister.co.uk

Microsoft has confirmed that attendees of its two forthcoming developer conferences get an early version of Windows 7, the next version of its desktop client.

The company made the news official on a blog for the Professional Developer Conference (PDC), which takes place in Los Angeles from October 27th to the 30th. The following week will be the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), also in Los Angeles, and those attendees will also get the early beta.

"At this year’s PDC, keynote attendees will be among the first to receive the pre-beta build of Windows 7. Additionally, attendees will have the opportunity to attend 21 different sessions that drill down into the details of developing for Windows 7," wrote Denise Begley, a Microsoft marketing manager.

InternetNews.com first reported two weeks ago that Microsoft was aiming to release a beta at the PDC show, and that internally the company was aiming for a June 2009 final code release. Publicly, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has said Windows 7 will be released in the first half of 2010.

Full article @ internetnews.com

All the hype came to its crescendo this week as T-Mobile, Google and HTC jointly released the T-Mobile G1, the first commercially available mobile device based on the open source Linux Google Android operating system.

The touch screen G1, known to some as the HTC Dream, bears some similarity to the Apple iPhone, which saw amazing uptake with the release of its 3G model. Even the original iPhone, released 15 months ago, still garners a great deal of hype.

And while it’s uncertain whether the T-Mobile G1 and Google Android will unseat the iPhone for smart phone supremacy, the G1 is better than the iPhone, though it might not be as pretty.

At the G1’s official launch on Tuesday, the main focus was on Google Android’s openness and its work with the Open Handset Alliance. Along with unveiling the physical device itself, the Google and T-Mobile teams also launched the Android Market. Similar in concept to the Apple AppStore, Android Market enables third-party application developers to offer their apps to be used on the device.

The Android Market, simply put, is better than Apple’s AppStore.

Google’s hands-off approach means there will be no whining about what applications do and don’t get picked up. Essentially, a developer can offer his or her application on the market without fees, review or even Google’s stamp of approval. With Apple keeping a tight grip on the apps offered in its AppStore — anyone remember IAMRICH? — Android Market will be a breath of fresh air.

Full article @ Channel Web

News Corp’s MySpace launches a new online music service on Thursday, aiming to loosen Apple’s grip on the US music industry and challenge all other online rivals. The service, MySpace Music, also aims to come to the aid of a music industry reeling from the continued slide in CD sales. MySpace Music is viewed by the music industry as an alternative to prior partnerships, most notably, its pact with Apple’s Steve Jobs. Label chiefs have long grumbled that Apple’s iTunes service is primarily designed to funnel profits back to Apple’s iPod and iPhone devices at the expense of the music industry. But so far, no contenders have managed to dent iTunes.

The big three labels – Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and Warner Music Group – together own about 40 per cent of MySpace Music joint venture. “Ultimately, it gives us some skin in the game,” says Rio Caraeff, Universal Music Group’s executive vice president of digital. “It gives us a voice in the ongoing development of the business.”

EMI had been the lone holdout, but joined the group at the last minute. Sony ATV and independent music group The Orchard are also participating. Chris DeWolfe, MySpace chief executive, says he wants MySpace Music “to be the biggest music catalogue in the world”. Some 5m artists already own profile pages on MySpace.

The company believes it can better connect to its 120m global visitors, 65 per cent of whom already stream music on their profile pages, with a more integrated and flashier interface that gives members access to the catalogues of these artists rather than the handful of songs they can currently upload.

Google’s motto has always been “Don’t be evil.” Now it’s willing to pay $10 million to prove it.

On Wednesday the Internet search gi ant unveiled an altruistic scheme called Project 10¹⁰⁰, pronounced “ten to the one hundredth,” which invites anyone and everyone to submit ideas that can “change the world by helping as many people as possible.”

As one example, the company, currently valued at about $140 billion, cites the Hippo Roller, a plastic water container that poor people in Third World countries can roll along the ground instead of carrying.

The deadline for submissions is Oct. 20th. Google will then pick the 100 best ideas.

Online voters will select the top 20, and in January judges will winnow them down to a maximum number of five that split a pot of $10 million that Google will grant for research and development.

Submissions can be entered here. Anyone can post multiple entries.

Oh, and why 10¹⁰⁰? As any math geek knows, that’s a googol, or 10 multiplied by itself 100 times — and the inspiration for Google’s name.

From FOX NEWS (foxnews.com)

From here onwards, keitai or Japanese phones can boast of having not only FeliCa cards using RFID technology, but a built-in intelligent key as well.

According to recent news, Sharp has embedded Nissan’s “Intelligent Key” technology into a new cell phone to be released by Japanese telco NTT DoCoMo.

The Intelligent Key technology is equipped into 950,000 Nissan cars released since 2002. It’s a two-way wireless communications system that’s used so the car automatically unlocks the doors when the key comes into range. It also lets drivers start (or stop) the engine even without inserting the key in, as long as the key is inside the car. In this case, the key takes the form of a cell phone.

The new Sharp cell phone by DoCoMo embedded with Nissan’s Intelligent Key (the first of its kind in the world) will be showcased on CEATEC Japan 2008 beginning September 30.

From PC MAG (pcmag.com)

T-Mobile is backpedaling on the limit it placed on the so-called unlimited data plan that will accompany its Android phone, but the operator isn’t saying exactly what the new terms will be.

When T-Mobile introduced the G1, the first phone based on Google’s Android mobile platform, on Tuesday, it said that subscribers would be able to sign up for a US$35-per-month unlimited data plan. But the fine print on the Web site for the phone said that users would actually be limited to 1G byte of data usage per month, after which their connection would slow to a 50K bps or less rate.

The operator quickly came under fire for the limit, which is relatively low for people who hope to use the phone regularly to view maps, check e-mail, watch YouTube videos and browse the Internet.

On Thursday, T-Mobile said it removed the 1G-byte limit from its policy statement. But it didn’t say that users would have true unlimited download capability. “The specific terms for our new data plans are still being reviewed and once they are final we will be certain to share this broadly with all customers,” the company said in a statement.

The Web site now has a more generic statement about possible repercussions for people who use what T-Mobile calls a “disproportionate” amount of bandwidth. “To provide the best network experience for all of our customers we may temporarily reduce data throughput for a small fraction of customers who use a disproportionate amount of bandwidth,” the fine print reads.

Read more @ pcworld.com

From PC World.