Rosetta comet-chaser phones home

20 January 2014
Last updated at 13:19 ET








By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News, Darmstadt

Delight in the control room as Rosetta sends back a signal confirming it is “awake”

Rosetta, Europe’s comet-chasing spacecraft, has woken from its slumber.

A signal confirming its alert status was received by controllers in Darmstadt, Germany, at 18:17 GMT.

Rosetta has spent the past 31 months in hibernation to conserve power as it arced beyond the orbit of Jupiter on a path that should take it to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August.

Engineers will now finesse the probe’s trajectory and prepare its instruments for the daring encounter.

One of the highlights of the mission will be the attempt to put a small robotic lander, Philae, on the surface of the 4.5km-wide comet. This will occur in November.

There were nail-biting moments in the Darmstadt control room as scientists waited for the signal to come through. Three quarters of the way through the hour-long window of opportunity, they got what they were waiting for.

Gerhard Schwehm, mission manager for Rosetta, said: “After 31 months in hibernation, what is 45 minutes to wait?”

Andrea Accomazzo, the spacecraft operations manager, said: “I think it was the longest hour of my life, but also one of the most rewarding.”

Monday’s message, when it arrived, was a simple one – just a spike on the screens here at the European Space Agency’s operations centre.

It was picked up in California by a 70m dish belonging to the US space agency, and then routed to Germany.

The signal contained no spacecraft telemetry, but its mere receipt from 800 million km away confirmed to controllers that Rosetta’s automated systems were operating as expected.

In the coming hours and days, the Darmstadt team will talk to Rosetta to establish the full status of its systems.

It will be a slow process. The huge distances between the probe and Earth mean telecommands have a one-way travel time of 45 minutes.

Rosetta was put into hibernation in June 2011 because its trajectory through the Solar System was about to take it so far from the Sun that its solar panels would harvest minimal energy. The decision was therefore taken to put the spacecraft in a deep sleep.

Now that it is arcing back towards the Sun, more power is becoming available to operate the probe.

“From now until mid-March, we have planned virtually no activities on the spacecraft. We can afford to run only some basic check-outs,” explained Andrea Accomazzo.

“But from mid-March to the end of April, we will be switching on the instruments one by one. We’ll check them out and in a few cases even update their software.”

From May, Rosetta will begin firing its thrusters to begin zeroing in on Comet 67P. Today, the separation is nine million km away. By mid-September, it will have been reduced to just 10km.

Launched back in 2004, Rosetta has taken a rather circuitous route out to its target.

This has involved making a number of flybys of the inner planets, using their gravity to pick up sufficient speed for the eventual encounter.

It has already delivered some fascinating science, particularly from the close passes it made to two asteroids – the rocks Steins, in 2008, and Lutetia, in 2010.

The plan is for Rosetta to escort the comet as it moves closer towards the Sun, monitoring the changes that take place on the body. The Philae lander will report changes that occur at the surface.

Comets – giant “dirty snowballs”, as some have called them – are believed to contain materials that have remained largely unchanged since the formation of the Solar System 4.6bn years ago.

Rosetta’s data should act therefore as a kind time machine, to enable researchers to study how our local space environment has changed over time.

“We will sample the physical and chemical composition of the comet,” said Matt Taylor, Esa’s Rosetta project scientist.

“This will give us knowledge on how and where the comet was formed, and about its subsequent journey through the evolution of the Solar System.

“We can connect that as well to the formation of the planets themselves. And, in addition, the elemental make-up of the comet can be considered ‘star stuff’ – it will provide us knowledge of the formation processes with the Sun itself.”

Rosetta is being billed as the big space event of 2014, and it is clear from the general and social media reaction to Monday’s wake-up that interest in the mission is considerable.

“Science in general catches the public’s imagination,” said Thomas Reiter, Esa’s director of human spaceflight and operations.

“In general, we try to find answers to fundamental questions, such as where do we come from, what will be our destiny and will we have to stick to this planet?

“The knowledge we get from missions like Rosetta – which is now moving into a very interesting stage – gets us closer to answering those types of questions.”

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

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Rosetta comet-chaser phones home

We"re More Sociable With Cell Phones

(Newser) – The modern American spends too much time staring at screens and not enough socializing—right? That’s what popular books like Bowling Alone and Alone Together have argued, but Rutgers professor Keith Hampton put that theory to the test by filming people in public spaces, the New York Times Magazine reports. In fact, he filmed public spaces in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston where a sociologist had filmed in the 1960s and ’70s, and compared the two. And lo and behold, we’re actually less alone than before. Among the findings and reactions:

• Cell phone use was fairly low, 3% at one location and 10% at another, the study found. And users tended to be alone, rather than ruining group dynamics by using cell phones with friends.


• Public interaction is higher today than in the old films. Today, 24% of people hanging around outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art are alone, but it was 32% back in 1979.


• Sherry Turkle, author of Alone Together, concedes that Hampton may be right about public spaces, but says his study ignores the destructive effects of technology in the home.


• Hampton’s most surprising finding: More women are out in public than before. “I mean, who would’ve thought that, in America, 30 years ago, women were not in public the same way they are now?” he says. “We don’t think about that.”

Back to the bad news: A Kent State University study finds that cell phone use gives students greater anxiety and lower GPAs, 23ABC News reports. “I will say, it does distract me and I guess that could affect my GPA,” says one student.

Newser

We"re More Sociable With Cell Phones

Why Facebook Messenger Wants Access To Your Phone"s Microphone

There’s an Infowars story that’s beginning to circulate widely about a seemingly very Orwellian move by Facebook. 

Supposedly, the company now wants to listen in on our phone calls. This one’s a good example of paranoia that misses the point.

Facebook’s asking users who download its Messenger app to allow the app access to their phone’s microphone at any time. Why would Facebook want to do something that sounds so creepy? Because Facebook’s Messenger app is designed to let you make phone calls to your Facebook friends. Which it needs your microphone for.

That’s why the other laundry list of permissions Facebook Messenger asks for actually aren’t that egregious either. Here’s Infowars: 

The TOS also authorizes Facebook to take videos and pictures using the phone’s camera at any time without permission, as well as directly calling numbers, again without permission, that could incur charges.

But wait, there’s more! Facebook can also “read your phone’s call log” and “read data about contacts stored on your phone, including the frequency with which you’ve called, emailed or communicated in other ways with specific individuals.”

Again, this all sounds very creepy, until you consider that the app wants to be able to replace your smartphone’s actual functionality as a phone. So accessing your photos and videos lets the app text photos and videos to your friends. Similarly, access to your call logs and address books make sense when you consider that this is a phone app. 

There’s certainly reasonable arguments for why you might not want to trust Facebook with your data. And it’s entirely possible someone will turn up something genuinely discomfiting up in regards to this app. But this story isn’t that.

The latest articles from TLDR

Why Facebook Messenger Wants Access To Your Phone"s Microphone

ZTE will bring second wave of Firefox OS phones to US next year

IDG News Service – ZTE plans on launching another phone running Mozilla’s Firefox OS, this time with a dual-core processor, a bigger screen,
and a revamped user experience, a company executive said on Tuesday.

The Chinese handset maker has so far sold about 100,000 of its first Firefox OS phone, the ZTE Open, said He Shiyou, the company’s
executive vice president. The low-end phone was built for developing markets such as Latin America, but later made available
in the U.S. and U.K., where it quickly sold out at prices of $ 79.99 and APS59.99, respectively.

The phone’s sales volume is small compared to the millions of Android handsets and iPhones that fly off store shelves weekly,
but ZTE has been pleased with the initial demand, and hopes sales will eventually reach 200,000 units, He said in an interview
with journalists.

“On the whole, the sales have been pretty good, especially on eBay and with third-party retailers,” he said. “The demand has
exceeded supply, but we also purposely did not want this first generation product to have a large scale.”

ZTE’s next Firefox phone will arrive in the first half of 2014, and remain priced at the lower end. The Chinese company largely
sells Android handsets, but has high hopes the Web-based Firefox operating system will eventually go mainstream.

“These Web-based OSes will develop fast, particularly because of 4G LTE technology,” he said. Higher-speed networks means
that HTML5-based apps can load quickly on phones, removing the need to download and install native apps, He added.

“In the future, the app store business model will be no more,” he said. “The Firefox OS is still new, and it will bring an
entirely different user experience.”

ZTE was ranked as the world’s fifth-largest smartphone vendor in the second quarter, according to research firm Gartner. But
the company is not widely known in the U.S., where it generally sells unbranded versions of its phones with local carriers
including AT&T and Sprint.

ZTE will begin selling its Grand S and Nubia smartphones in the U.S. in Oct.

But starting in October, ZTE will begin selling its Grand S and Nubia phones in the U.S. through retailers.

The Grand S, launched in China earlier this year, is an Android phone with a 5-inch full-HD screen. It has a quad-core processor, 13-megapixel
camera, and its U.S. edition will probably come with a 2300 mAh battery. The price will range between US$ 400 and $ 500 when
bought without carrier subsidies.

ZTE’s Nubia Z5, another Android phone, features similar specs with a 5-inch full-HD screen and a quad-core processor. Its
price will range around $ 450.

For this year, the company is aiming to grow its U.S. handset revenue by 60 percent year on year to around $ 1.6 billion.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

Netflash

ZTE will bring second wave of Firefox OS phones to US next year

Kids Shouldn"t Have Phones Because They Need to Learn Empathy and Experience Sadness

A definitive moment from Louis CK on the touch-screen generation this week:

 

Master Feed : The Atlantic

Kids Shouldn"t Have Phones Because They Need to Learn Empathy and Experience Sadness

Mozilla"s Firefox Phones Get Operator Billing Through Bango

Mozilla has signed mobile payments company Bango to allow operator billing on the Firefox OS marketplace. That means that users on the soon-to-be-released Firefox phones will be able to pay for their apps via their phone bills.

This confirms a scoop that we had in February, where we first announced the Mozilla and Bango marriage.

Carrier billing is still not a common feature in smartphone app stores, where billing is typically charged to user credit cards, as it is with Google Play and the iOS App Store. But it’s especially significant in emerging markets, where credit card penetration is far from ubiquitous, and the prepaid segment remains sizable.

And as Mozilla positions its upcoming mid-range devices towards markets such as Latin America and Asia, the ability to provide carrier billing will help address the many unbanked users which don’t have credit cards.

Bango isn’t a stranger to large telecoms deals. The Cambridge-based firm signed a deal with mobile carrier Telefonica in January to power carrier billing for Telefonica’s services, covering the latter’s 314 million subscriber base.

The anticipated Firefox OS is Mozilla’s smartphone operating system based entirely on open Web standards such as HTML5. Mozilla is positioning it as an alternative for powering low-cost and mid-range devices, in particular by offering carriers more control over the inner workings of the phone, compared with Android, for example.

Bango raised $ 10.2 million in February 2013 to continue growing its customer base. It already provides carrier billing options to large clients such as Facebook, Amazon, BlackBerry and Opera, to name some, and says it has a reach of about a billion users.

October 1999

August 7, 2005, AIM: BGO

In the era of mobile technology, collecting payments has emerged as a central and complex challenge. Bango (AIM: BGO) powers payment and analytics on the mobile web, providing users with a massively smooth payment experience. Bango’s pervasive presence across the web creates a platform effect for partners, identifying hundreds of millions of users and maximizing the number of one-click payments. Global leaders plug into Bango: customers include Facebook, BlackBerry World, Windows Phone Store, Amazon and major mobile brands including CNN,…

→ Learn more

TechCrunch

Mozilla"s Firefox Phones Get Operator Billing Through Bango

Dept. of Homeland Security: Laptops, Phones Can Be Searched Based on Hunches

cbslocal.com
June 6, 2013

U.S. border agents should continue to be allowed to search a traveler’s laptop, cellphone or other electronic device and keep copies of any data on them based on no more than a hunch, according to an internal Homeland Security Department study. It contends limiting such searches would prevent the U.S. from detecting child pornographers or terrorists and expose the government to lawsuits.

The 23-page report, obtained by The Associated Press and the American Civil Liberties Union under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, provides a rare glimpse of the Obama administration’s thinking on the long-standing but controversial practice of border agents and immigration officers searching and in some cases holding for weeks or months the digital devices of anyone trying to enter the U.S.

Since his election, President Barack Obama has taken an expansive view of legal authorities in the name of national security, asserting that he can order the deaths of U.S. citizens abroad who are suspected of terrorism without involvement by courts, investigate reporters as criminals and — in this case — read and copy the contents of computers carried by U.S. travelers without a good reason to suspect wrongdoing.

Read more

This article was posted: Thursday, June 6, 2013 at 12:24 pm

Tags: big brother, constitution, domestic news, domestic spying, technology

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Infowars

Dept. of Homeland Security: Laptops, Phones Can Be Searched Based on Hunches

U.S. to loosen sanctions on Iran for mobile phones, gadgets

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WASHINGTON –  The United States was set to relax sanctions on Iran on Thursday to allow American companies to sell mobile phones, software and other technology used for personal communications to Iranians, two U.S. officials said.

The move, expected later on Thursday, will allow Iranians to get access to the latest Apple phones and newest software that have only been available on Tehran’s black market since sanctions were first imposed in 1992.

The U.S. has ramped up tough measures against Iran in recent years to slow development of the Islamic Republic’s disputed nuclear program, blacklisting a wide range of Iranian companies and government officials.

The United States believes Iran is enriching uranium to levels that could be used in nuclear weapons, but Tehran says its program is for peaceful purposes.

The easing of sanctions on technology may be an attempt by the U.S. government to develop goodwill with Iranian citizens before the Iranian national elections next month.

Social media played a big role in the wake of Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential elections, used by the opposition “Green Movement” to marshal global attention to their cause, and later inspiring protesters in the Arab Spring revolts of 2011.

The U.S. government first eased some technology restrictions after the election in 2010, allowing U.S. companies to export to Iran some basic software and free Internet services such as chat and email.

But the move on Thursday goes further, allowing companies to sell software and hardware to Iranian citizens, Wendy Sherman, undersecretary for political affairs at the U.S. State Department, said in an interview on the BBC Persian service late on Wednesday.

“We have no desire to cut off communications,” she said in the interview, which first announced the looser rules. “We in fact want to encourage communications in every way we can.”

The English transcript from Sherman’s interview was provided by the National Iranian American Council, a non-profit group that has long urged the U.S. government to ease restrictions on Iran that hurt ordinary citizens but do little to hinder the government’s actions.

(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov, additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

FOXBusiness.com

U.S. to loosen sanctions on Iran for mobile phones, gadgets

New Cell Phones 2012: The Best Accessories

If you plan on purchasing one of the new cell phones of 2012 in the very near future, then you\’re going also want to make sure that you have the best cell phone accessories available to you to help round out your purchasing choice. You might not even know what the best cell phone accessories are right now, so I wanted to take a few minutes to share them with you so you can see for yourself which accessories you will certainly need. So let\’s look at this a bit closer right now.

One of the hottest accessories are silicone skins. These skins will give your phone a unique look which is great for showing off your style or matching your outfit. There are tons of designs and patterns to choose from or you could even get one that represents your favorite sports team or your college. These skins will also help distinguish your phone from others and help prevent you losing or misplacing it. Skins offer more design options than other types of cases.

The next choice you might want to go with is one of the snap on covers that they are now selling. You can get your cover in a very clear, plastic case that will fit right over your phone. The good thing about these covers is that they are not only inexpensive, but they are also very sleek looking in their design. But more important than not, they are very good at protecting your phone from getting scratched which is the real reason why you want to have one of these snap on covers.

Some phones also offer leather cases. The leather cases are going to be a bit larger than the snap-ons so that\’s something to keep in mind. These cases are thick and well-made and will provide the most protection for your phone. Just keep in mind how much space your phone will take up in your pocket or purse with the case on.

Whichever case you may decide to go with for your new phone, it will surely make your phone even more enjoyable for you. If you don\’t have a case for your phone already, you should look into getting one.

For more information on the new cell phones of 2012, the best accessories for your new phone, and where to find the best deals on cell phones, visit Our Site.

New Cell Phones 2012: The Best Accessories