NASA and Microsoft Provide Mars 3-D Close Encounter

Skyb-Umpunk- NASA and Microsoft Research are bringing Mars to life with new features in the WorldWide Telescope software that provide viewers with a high-resolution 3-D map of the Red Planet.

Microsoft's online virtual telescope explores the universe using images NASA spacecraft return from other worlds. Teams at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., jointly developed the software necessary to make NASA's planetary data available in WorldWide Telescope.
"By providing the Mars dataset to the public on the WorldWide Telescope platform, we are enabling a whole new audience to experience the thrill of space," said Chris C. Kemp, chief technology officer for information technology at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
The fully-interactive images and new NASA data will allow viewers to virtually explore Mars and make their own scientific discoveries. New features include the highest-resolution fully interactive map of Mars ever created, realistic 3-D renderings of the surface of the planet, and video tours with two NASA scientists, James Garvin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and Carol Stoker of Ames.
Garvin's tour walks viewers through the geological history of Mars and discusses three possible landing sites for human missions there. Each landing site highlights a different geological era of the planet.
Stoker's tour addresses the question: "Is there life on Mars?" and describes the findings of NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander.
"Our hope is that this inspires the next generation of explorers to continue the scientific discovery process," said Ames Center Director S. Pete Worden.
The Intelligent Robotics Group at Ames Research Center developed open source software that runs on the NASA Nebula cloud computing platform to create and host the high-resolution maps. The maps contain 74,000 images from Mars Global Surveyor's Mars Orbiter Camera and more than 13,000 high-resolution images of Mars taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. Each individual HiRISE image contains more than a billion pixels. The complete maps were rendered into image mosaics containing more than half a billion smaller images.
"These incredibly detailed maps will enable the public to better experience and explore Mars," said Michael Broxton, a research scientist in the Intelligent Robotics Group at Ames. "The collaborative relationship between NASA and Microsoft Research was instrumental for creating the software that brings these new Mars images into people's hands, classrooms and living rooms."
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reached the planet in 2006 to begin a two-year primary science mission. The mission has returned more data about Mars than all other spacecraft sent to the Red Planet. Mars Global Surveyor began orbiting Mars in 1997. The spacecraft operated longer than any other Mars spacecraft, ceasing operations in November 2006.
"Microsoft has a long-standing relationship with NASA that has enabled us to jointly provide the public with the ability to discover space in a new way," said Tony Hey, corporate vice president of the External Research Division of Microsoft Research.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson, and was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego provided and operated the Mars Orbiter Camera.

Windows Vista less good, Microsoft exec admits

With Windows 7's launch looming , a company executive yesterday denigrated its predecessor, calling Vista a "less good product."

The comment won't surprise many analysts and users, who have condemned the 2007 operating system as bloated, slow and balky, but it's the furthest any high-level Microsoft executive has gone in criticizing Vista.

"What people underestimate is the importance of good or bad products," said Charles Songhurst, Microsoft's general manager of corporate strategy, at a investor's conference on Tuesday. "And sometimes your products are good, sometimes the products are bad. And I think Vista was a less good product for Microsoft."

Windows 7, on the other hand, is much better than good, Songhurst argued. "Windows 7 is an extremely good product from Microsoft. It's been brilliantly developed, and I think people probably underestimate the effects of the bad products and the good products."

In the past, Microsoft's top managers have limited their public criticism of Vista to oblique comparisons with the new Windows 7. Last October, for example, CEO Steve Ballmer called Windows 7 "Windows Vista, a lot better."

A month later, others, including Stephen Sinofsky, who heads Windows development, acknowledged mistakes had made with Vista, but swore that they would not be repeated with Windows 7.

Company executives' private opinions of Vista were much more revealing, however. According to internal Microsoft e-mails disclosed in 2008 during a class-action lawsuit, senior executives and a board member griped about Vista shortly after it was released in early 2007, saying it was missing drivers and crippled their new PCs.

For the most part, Windows 7's reception by analysts, users and reviewers has been positive, with Computerworld 's Preston Gralla representative of the consensus. "If you're a Vista user, you'll do well to upgrade to Windows 7; it's a superior operating system," Gralla said in his review of the final code .

At the Webcast conference, sponsored by the Jeffries investment and banking group, Songhurst also dismissed the idea that Apple and Google, with their Mac OS and Chrome OS , respectively, pose a threat to Microsoft's dominance in the operating system market.

"Apple has two very big structure advantages over us," Songhurst acknowledged. "The first is its vertical integration ... there's always the quality of experience you can do if you go vertical that you can never do as a horizontal player."

Apple, however, has maneuvered to make its operating system, and thus its computers, more attractive to CIOs. Late last month, Apple launched Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard , which includes built-in support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 .

As for Google's Chrome, Songhurst was just as optimistic that Microsoft would be able to fend off that rival. "Because [Chrome OS] doesn't exist yet, it's hard to say much about it," Songhurst started. "If it comes out and it's the world's most amazing operating system, and does things that no one has ever thought of, it's a real problem for Microsoft. [But] if it's a similar version to a Microsoft operating system, but at a lower price point, or funded by search, it's much less of a threat.

"The quality of Windows 7 is the best defense we have in this space," Songhurst said.

Some analysts have agreed . In an interview shortly after Google announced Chrome OS last July, Michael Cherry, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, was confident that Google could face the same challenges as Microsoft in the long run. "We didn't get to where we are with Windows because Microsoft set out to build a slow, massive operating system. They kept adding functionality," Cherry said at the time.

"What Google will face is application developers who say, 'Here's what we'd like to do,' and Google will realize that their OS doesn't support that. And then they'll expose an API or add functionality. And lo and behold, it's a little bigger," he said.

Google has shared little about Chrome, saying only that it will launch in the second half of 2010 .

Not surprisingly, Microsoft's Songhurst was upbeat about Windows', and Microsoft's, future.

"What you hear at the moment is a lot of commentary about how [the OS business] is commoditized, how it's hard to get more innovation in it," he said during the Q&A portion of the conference. "And I think what you'll find is a renewed belief in innovation, and a renewed belief in the Windows franchise.

"When Windows is executing well, Microsoft is in good shape," said Songhurst. metatag data

Hybrid Hard Disk by Samsung-Microsoft

Future Hard Disk Drive-by-samsunG-microSoft

Skyters-Samsung and Microsoft have been touting the wonders of the hybrid hard drive since 2005 -- in other words "forever" on a technology timeline. Now, finally, Samsung is pushing their ReadDrive-freindly HDDout the door to OEM starting today. 

The MH80 series of 2.5 inch drives build in 128/256MB of NAND flash to augement the traditional 80/120/160GB of traditional hard disk capacity. Samsung claims that their new HDDs offer 5x the reliability of conventional hard disk while shaving up to 50% off Windows Vista boot times and cutting power consumption by 70-90% to deliver about 30-minutes more laptop run-time battery.

P/S - outstanding...no price given, but look for 'em to hit higher-end laptops as relatively costly option any day now..with any luck, the higher cost will be offset by more bang-for-the buck..huhu