NASA Delays Shuttle Launching After Finding Hydrogen Leak and Crack - New York Times

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — The shuttle Discovery, already delayed three times by technical problems and bad weather, was grounded again Friday, this time by a potentially dangerous gaseous hydrogen leak in a vent line attached to the ship’s external tank.

The Discovery was initially scheduled to make its 39th and final flight last Monday, bearing fresh supplies and an intelligent robot for the International Space Station. But complications delayed the flight from Monday to Friday, when the hydrogen leak led NASA to conclude that the shuttle would not be ready to launch before its flight window closed this Monday.

Almost at the same time that NASA managers were deciding to delay another attempt until Nov. 30, the opening of the next available launching window, engineers spotted a 7-inch-long crack in protective foam insulation on the side of the giant tank.

The crack, on the side of the tank facing the Discovery, represented a possible source of debris that could have posed a threat to the shuttle’s fragile heat shield during the climb out of the dense lower atmosphere.

Officials said the crack would have been spotted during normal prelaunching inspections and most likely would have prompted a delay even if the hydrogen leak had not developed. In the end, senior NASA managers decided to take the time needed to make sure the problems were well understood and repaired before making another attempt.

“We will come back in late November and give it another shot,” said Michael Leinbach, the launching director. “We’re going to fly when we’re ready, and clearly we were not ready to fly today.”

The Discovery’s six-member crew — Cmdr. Steven W. Lindsey; Col. Eric A. Boe of the Air Force, the shuttle pilot; Col. Benjamin A. Drew Jr., also of the Air Force; Col. Timothy L. Kopra of the Army; Nicole P. Stott; and Dr. Michael R. Barratt, a physician-astronaut — flew back to Houston after the launching scrub was announced.

The Discovery is attempting an 11-day mission to deliver critical supplies and equipment to the International Space Station. It will be loaded with a new cargo module, more than 6,000 pounds of supplies and equipment and a spare set of cooling system radiators that will be stored outside the lab complex.

Because of temperature issues related to the space station’s orbit, NASA will have only about one week, from Nov. 30 through Dec. 5 or 6, to get the Discovery off the ground this year. Otherwise, the flight could be delayed until late February, throwing a wrench into NASA’s plans for carrying out a final three missions and retiring the shuttle fleet by next summer.

“Discovery’s not going out easy,” Mr. Leinbach joked earlier in the week. “She’s giving us a little bit of trouble. But that’s fine — she’ll fly perfectly when she does.”

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How Pelosi's determination could hamper Obama - Washington Post

Just when President Obama thought he had all the problems he could handle, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might have handed him another.

Pelosi stunned many Democrats on Friday with the announcement that she will run for leader of the new Democratic minority in the House. If her colleagues and the smart money in Washington thought she would retreat and resign after the Democrats' 60-seat loss Tuesday, Pelosi reminded them that she didn't become the first female speaker in history through timidity.

The question is whether she has significantly complicated life for Obama as he prepares to deal with the Republican majority in the House and Senate Republicans led by someone who spent the week hurling thunderbolts at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. From outside reports, the White House was conflicted about whether it wanted her to stay or go, torn between loyalty to the speaker for all she did during the past two years and its own political needs in the wake of Tuesday's loss.

Pelosi would be a symbol of resistance and liberal opposition to the Republicans. If Obama wants a House leader who will help draw bright lines of distinction with the new House majority, Pelosi could be exactly the right person to lead House Democrats. If he wants more room to maneuver, to make deals with Republicans as well as confront them, she might not be at all what he wants.

Memories are short in Washington, which is why there was such widespread expectation that Pelosi would resign. Former Republican speaker Newt Gingrich stepped down days after his party's embarrassing performance in the 1998 midterms (though the party did not lose its majority). Former Republican speaker J. Dennis Hastert decided not to seek a leadership position after his party lost the majority four years ago and later quit Congress entirely.

For Pelosi, who might have looked further back in the history books, the role model could be Sam Rayburn, the legendary Democratic speaker from Texas. Rayburn's party lost its majority in the 1946 midterms but he stayed on, running successfully for minority leader - although he never liked the term.

Rayburn's persistence was rewarded when Harry S. Truman's 1948 campaign against the "do-nothing" 80th Congress not only resulted in the president's unexpected victory but the election of a Democratic majority in the House to boot.

Pelosi might not believe House Democrats will return to the majority that quickly, but she sounds determined to defend what has happened on her watch.

If Rayburn was one of the strongest speakers in history, Pelosi is the strongest of modern times. Fighting the kind of prejudice that all women in politics face, she emerged as a shrewd, savvy and, above all, tough-minded speaker. Under her leadership, the House passed historic legislation and accumulated a record of significant productivity. Without her political skills, Obama would not be able to count health care as one of his achievements.

The other side of the story is that Pelosi became as polarizing a figure as there was in Washington - much more than Obama. The health-care law has divided the country and come to symbolize Democratic overreach. She pushed House Democrats to pass the cap-and-trade energy bill, and many paid the price.

By Election Day, her image was upside down, with 29 percent viewing her favorably and 58 percent unfavorably. Only among liberal Democrats did her image hold up during the four years she has been speaker. Among all other groups - Republicans, independents, moderate and conservative Democrats - her numbers declined.

Republicans made Pelosi their favorite target in campaign commercials this fall, and Democrats who used her did so to make the point that they would keep their distance and independence if the voters rewarded them with another term. Most of them lost anyway.

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First Openly Gay Episcopal Bishop to Retire in 2013 - New York Times

He plans to retire in January 2013 after nine years as bishop, to give the diocese enough time to elect a new bishop and get the approval of the national church, a process that can take two years.

The news took some by surprise because Bishop Robinson is an energetic 63-year-old, and mandatory retirement age for Episcopal bishops is 72. He has led a relatively stable and healthy diocese, despite predictions by some that his election would undermine the Episcopal Church in New Hampshire.

The reason to depart, he said in a speech delivered at the close of the annual convention of his diocese, is that being at the center of an international uproar has taken a toll on him and on the diocese.

“Death threats, and the now worldwide controversy surrounding your election of me as bishop, have been a constant strain, not just on me, but on my beloved husband, Mark” and on Episcopalians in the state, he said.

But those who know Bishop Robinson say he has no intention of retiring from public life. His status as a symbol in the international gay rights movement means that after he steps down, he will have no shortage of platforms from which to preach his message that God blesses gay relationships too. (Through a spokesman, he declined interview requests.)

Bishop Robinson has become a national figure. In 2009, he gave the invocation for the opening event of the inauguration of President Obama. He also sees himself as an evangelist to people alienated from Christianity.

The election of Bishop Robinson in a church in Concord, N. H., in 2003 was the shot heard round the Christian world. It cracked open a longstanding divide between theological liberals and conservatives in both the Episcopal Church and its parent body, the Anglican Communion — those churches affiliated with the Church of England in more than 160 countries.

Since 2003, the Communion’s leaders have labored to save it from outright schism, not just over homosexuality, but also over female bishops and priests.

The current strategy, pushed by the archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, is for each regional province to sign a “covenant” of common beliefs.

The covenant has been slowly making its way through laborious writing and approval processes, which could take years.

Late last month, an international coalition of liberal Anglicans started a campaign to reject the covenant, saying, “The covenant seeks to narrow the range of acceptable belief within Anglicanism.”

The group, Anglicans for Comprehensive Unity, said, “Rather than bringing peace to the Communion, we predict that the covenant text itself could become the cause of future bickering and that its centralized dispute-resolution mechanisms could beget interminable quarrels and resentments.”

The church in New Hampshire suffered less fallout under Bishop Robinson than the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Communion. Only one New Hampshire congregation departed during his tenure, a congregation long unhappy with the direction of the Episcopal Church, according to diocesan leaders.

The number of active members in New Hampshire fell 3 percent, from 15,259 in 2003 to 14,787 in 2009. In that period, the Episcopal Church, like most mainline Protestant denominations, lost about 10 percent of its members. (It had about two million in 2008, the last year for which statistics are available.)

Bishop Robinson won critics over with a leadership style that was decisive but collaborative, said Margaret Porter, moderator of the diocesan council.

“The people who were skeptics, that did not last,” she said. “He was willing to meet them where they were. There were churches that were reluctant to have him visit as bishop for a time, and I think he now visits every congregation and is welcomed.”

But the pressure on Bishop Robinson became apparent in 2006. He took a monthlong leave to be treated for alcoholism. He said Saturday that he was in his fifth year of sobriety.

He and his partner of more than 20 years had a civil union ceremony in New Hampshire in 2008.

Bishop Robinson is no longer the only openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. Bishop Mary D. Glasspool was consecrated in Los Angeles earlier this year.

In his resignation speech in New Hampshire, Bishop Robinson said: “This is the one place on earth where I am not ‘the gay bishop.’ I believe that you elected me because you believed me to be the right person to lead you at this time. The world has sometimes questioned that, but I hope you never did.”

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Apple vs. Android Growth: Verizon iPhone and 9 Other Possibilities - PMP Today

The most obvious way is to announce and release a Verizon iPhone, a lot of Americans are not fans of AT&T’s network, therefore choose Verizon instead, at the moment most, if not all of the high-end devices Verizon offer run Android, which is obviously one way that Android has grown so much lately.

apple-vs-android-growth-verizon-iphone-and-9-other-possibilities

If you check out eWeek’s recent article you can see nine other ways that Apple can combat Android, we will talk about them briefly in this article, however check out this link for full details (be aware the article is split across two pages).

Other suggestions include keeping the pressure on with patents, keeping ahead in terms of physical and software design, continuing to innovate and improve on where iOS is failing, fix the antenna issue, use marketing to fight Google, add something exciting to the next iPhone (preferably something that has not been done before) and focus on Google as a competitor rather than all other smartphone options.

Towards the end of eWeek’s article they seem to run out of ideas, they say that Google should look beyond smartphones and also concentrate on future tablets, to be honest I think that Apple has been doing this with all of their iOS updates etc.

We would love to hear your opinions on this article, what do you think Apple should concentrate on to combat Android? Personally, I think the next iPhone’s hardware needs to outdo its competitors rather than close the gap.

Source: Product-Reviews.net

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Will Location-Based Services Ever Go Mainstream? - BusinessWeek

By Mathew Ingram

Do you use a location-based app or service such as Foursquare or Gowalla? Then you are a member of a tiny minority of Internet users, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. The survey found that only 4 percent of online adults use any service that allows them to share their location with friends, and on any given day just 1 percent of Internet users are making use of such services. The multimillion-dollar question is whether the launch of Facebook Places—and particularly its recent mobile Deals feature—will change those numbers and take location services mainstream.

It's not surprising that a small percentage of Internet users overall have made use of a location-based app, but what about those who typically go online via their smartphones? According to the Pew report, only 7 percent of those adults who go online via their phones make use of a location-based service regularly. The study found that a larger proportion of younger users—those between 18 and 29—use such services, but still only 8 percent. Men use these services far more than women do: twice as much, in fact, with 6 percent of men using them regularly and just 3 percent of women. (Interestingly, the survey also found that significantly more Hispanics use such services: 10 percent, compared with 3 percent of whites and 5 percent of blacks.)

The study's overall conclusions are not a surprise. A Forrester research report in July came up with similar numbers. It also found that only 4 percent of U.S. online users had ever used a location-based application, and almost 85 percent of those surveyed by the research company said they were not familiar with location-based apps at all. As the Pew report points out, it wasn't that long ago that Twitter reached a similarly tiny proportion of Internet users, and it has effectively achieved mainstream status, with almost 25 percent of survey respondents saying they use it.

One thing that could help catapult location-based services into the mainstream is the arrival of Facebook Places. The new feature is only a few months old, but according to a statement by Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, it already is "multiples bigger" than any other location service. By way of comparison, Foursquare has about 4 million users, although it's not clear how many of those are regular users of the service. And Facebook has just launched an add-on to Places for mobile—a service called Deals that allows retailers and other merchants to offer discounts to users who "check in" to a specific location. The social network has already signed up several major advertisers for the service, including The Gap (GPS), Starbucks (SBUX), American Eagle Outfitters (AEO), and McDonald's (MCD).

Getting a discount is a great incentive to check in somewhere, but it's not obvious it's going to persuade large masses of people to adopt location services. The biggest issue for many users, including some friends I have spoken with, is that sharing one's physical location breaches a personal privacy barrier that many people are uncomfortable with, even if it is being broadcast only to one's friends—and the fact that your friends can tag you at a location through Facebook Places just adds to that uncomfortable feeling. Facebook may have 500 million users, but even that kind of reach may not be enough to move location-sharing into the mainstream.

Also from GigaOM:

Will the Real 4G Please Stand Up?

With FaceTime Looming, Skype Outs a Better Mac Client

Green Overdrive: Sneak a Peek at the Official Plug-In Prius Prototype

Bowing to Pressure, YouTube Takes Down Jihadi Videos

Three iOS Game Developers to Watch

Provided by GigaOm—

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