What We Could Lose if the James Webb Telescope Is Killed - PC Magazine

NASA's next space-based observatory is on the chopping block due to budget cuts. If it dies, a whole universe of discovery could die with it.

NASA's James Webb telescope, the successor to the Hubble, is on the chopping block. With the U.S. Congress arguing over fiscal matters, one of the things that may get cut is NASA's budget, with the expensive James Webb telescope potentially getting the ax. If that happens, a generation of scientific discoveries about the nature of the universe may need to be put on hold.

Right now the future of the Webb telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018, is uncertain. Congress is looking to cut costs, and NASA's budget could be cut by as much as $1.6 billion (or about nine percent of its overall budget). Such a big cut would certainly be the death knell for the Webb telescope, which has so far cost $3 billion but whose final price is expected to hit the $6.8-billion mark.

"The cost overruns are driven by a couple things," says Rick Howard, the program director of the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA. "We've had ten or so technologies that needed to work in order to have this kind of telescope—mirrors actuators, the sunshade. We've made great progress, but it's taken longer and it's been harder than we thought. We've hand to invent new adhesives for carbon fiber because what we thought was the right chemical equation didn't work at all. Another source was inadequate early funding of reserves."

Seeing in Infrared

With the Webb in jeopardy, its mission to find out more about the nature of the universe may be postponed. The telescope is fundamentally different from Hubble, scanning the infrared spectrum rather than visual light. Being able to see in infrared is the key to the Webb making new discoveries. For example, it will be able to penetrate dust clouds that are opaque to normal telescopes.

But seeing in infrared is also one of the reasons the Webb is so expensive. Since all objects emit some infrared light, the telescope needs to be positioned much farther from the earth than normal satellites to shield it from potential interference. In fact, the Webb will ultimately be four times further from the earth than the moon. At such a long distance, servicing the telescope will be impossible, says NASA, so it cannot afford any screw-ups or design flaws. As such, testing the Webb's components is extremely detailed.

"We are very concerned about that," says Howard. " There's a huge amount of testing that goes on. We've gone to great lengths to build both sub-scale and full-scale prototypes in order to be able to make sure we fully understand this design. In addition to that we have a lot of testing going on of the flight unit."

What We'll Lose With the Webb

Once it's in place, though, the Webb is quite literally expected to unlock a universe of discoveries. Positioned so far from the Earth and shielded from outside infrared interference, the telescope will be able to see things the Hubble never could. Chief among them: seeing back in time. Since light only travels so fast, the further you look out, the further you look back. The Webb is expected to be able to peer into some of the universe's earliest moments, before even stars existed. This could give insight into how the cosmos came into being.

On top of that, the Webb is going to be looking at how the first galaxies were formed. From observations from Hubble and other telescopes, we know know most galaxies have huge black holes at their centers, but questions remain about how this symbiotic pairing of black holes and stars emerges. The answer likely has to do with "dark matter," the term for the missing matter in the universe that scientists can observe the gravitational effects of, but can't see directly. By looking into the formation of galaxies, the Webb may unlock the secrets of this mysterious substance.

"We'll be looking at the very first stars and galaxies in the universe, which right now are very fuzzy little blobs on the deepest images with Hubble," says Howard. "Not just seeing them, but getting [good] resolution on them. Because it'll be able to look back at the earliest galaxies, it'll be able to see how dark matter has affected light as it travels to us."

Finally, the Webb may help answer the question of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe. The telescope will be able to see better than ever before planets in other star systems and more importantly—which ones have water. A planet with large amounts of water is a prime candidate for life, and the Webb could point us right to them.

"[We'll] be able to look at those planets and look at the spectra, the composition of the atmosphere, the composition of water— it's something only the [James Webb telescope] will be able to do," Howard says. "It'll be able to tell water in the atmosphere, maybe even on the surface."

Looking Back at Hubble

All of its potential discoveries come at a price, however, and it may be one Congress isn't willing to pay. The risk factor is high, too, since the telescope must set itself up perfectly at a vast distance from the earth. If anything goes wrong, it's billions in wasted taxpayer dollars.

In considering the fate of the Webb, it's informative to look back at Hubble, which led to almost two decades of cosmological discovery. Besides finding those galactic black-hole nuclei, Hubble's observations revealed the age of the universe, the repulsive force known as "dark energy," and that planets are common.

"When we launched Hubble, no one thought that it would be able to make the observations and discoveries that it has," Howard says. "Hubble's the only telescope that has ever made an actual observation of a planet orbiting another star. Nobody else has done that. When we launched Hubble, no one had even thought dark energy existed.

"The discovery space is huge for this observatory."

For more from Peter, follow him on Twitter @petepachal.

For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.

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Plan could charge some users higher Internet fees - USA Today

People who spend a lot of time watching videos or downloading files from the Internet could pay higher prices as part of a controversial proposal that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski unveiled Wednesday.He will ask the five-member regulatory agency to vote on Dec. 21 on rules that he says would "preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet." President Obama has said that protecting what's known as net neutrality would be a top goal.

Genachowski said that his proposal would bar "unreasonable" efforts by Internet providers — led by cable and phone companies — to help some services and hurt others. For example, providers couldn't provide smooth and uninterrupted transmissions for communication services that they own, and jittery or delayed transmissions for competitors such as YouTube or Skype.

But Genachowski apparently hopes to win cable and phone company support by endorsing their right to make heavy Internet users pay more. It's been unclear whether the FCC would deem such pricing plans to be discriminatory: For example, consumers might favor unlimited conventional cable TV over a Web video service such as Netflix if broadband prices were tied to how many minutes or megabytes they use.

"The thrust of the proposal has shifted from purely preserving 'openness' to now simultaneously acknowledging the need for broadband rationing," says analyst Craig Moffett of financial services firm Bernstein Research.

Genachowski also made a concession to cable and phone companies by abandoning his effort to reclassify the Internet as a regulated communications service, similar to telephone connections.

Internet providers vigorously objected to that effort, launched in May following a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling. Justices said the FCC lacked authority to set rules for the Internet because the agency has classified it as an unregulated information service.

Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell challenged the FCC's authority to adopt what he called an "ill-advised" and "highly interventionist" plan. House Republicans are "promising to attack the FCC move to write rules," says analyst Rebecca Arbogast at financial services firm Stifel Nicolaus.

Net neutrality supporters were divided. Free Press CEO Josh Silver called the proposal "disappointing." Craigslist founder Craig Newmark said it would "help ensure certainty in markets while also preserving the openness ... of the Internet."

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Suu Kyi release could boost Myanmar's economy - AFP

Suu Kyi release could boost Myanmar's economyBy Roberto Coloma (AFP) – 1 hour ago

SINGAPORE — The release of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi could pay off economically for Myanmar's junta even though Western nations are unlikely to ease trade and other sanctions soon, analysts said.

For years, the military regime of resource-rich Myanmar has blunted the impact of US and European punitive measures by cultivating trade and investment links with neighbours led by Thailand, China, India, Singapore and Malaysia.

Suu Kyi's freedom and this month's rare election may reduce the stigma of doing business with Myanmar, even though her party boycotted the vote and the results were dismissed as a sham by much of the outside world.

"It is a welcome sign. We hope this is the start for a change and that it will encourage more investments in Myanmar," said a senior official from the Malaysian trade ministry who declined to be named.

But opponents of the junta fear that any increased money flowing into the impoverished country will not improve the lives of ordinary people.

Myanmar is one of the world's least developed countries, with nearly a third of the population living below the poverty line as the generals and their associates exploit raw materials for their own benefit.

Asian neighbours China, India, and Thailand already overlook human rights concerns in favour of engagement with Myanmar, which boasts oil, gas and other natural resources as well as tremendous tourism potential.

India gave Myanmar leader Than Shwe a red-carpet welcome in July and the two countries signed pacts on border security, road building and finance.

But for India, as the world's largest democracy, Myanmar's recent moves could ease domestic political pressure not to prop up the regime.

"The release of Aung Sang Suu Kyi gives India a greater diplomatic space to engage with Myanmar without the fear of being criticised while dealing with the military dictatorship regime," said C. Uday Bhaskar, director of the New Delhi think-tank National Maritime Foundation.

Thailand is another top investor and trading partner, importing over 90 percent of all of Myanmar's natural gas exports.

A major Thai construction firm recently signed an eight-billion-dollar infrastructure deal with the military-ruled country, including the construction of a giant deep sea port in the impoverished nation.

China, a single-party state often criticised for its own human-rights record, is also expected to forge closer economic ties regardless of the political situation as it scours the world for natural resources to feed its fast-growing economy.

Indeed, it recently became the largest foreign investor in Myanmar this year, state media in Beijing reported. Among projects already under way, China National Petroleum Corp. is building an oil and gas pipeline from Myanmar's Kyuakryu port to southwestern China.

"Both the junta and Chinese Communist Party have an understanding that whatever the West and rest of the world thinks about human rights and the Nobel prize, it will not really have an impact on the development of ties and support for each other," said Professor Ian Holliday at the University of Hong Kong.

Myanmar watchers said it was too early to say if the developments could lead to an easing of Western sanctions on the regime, which is still holding an estimated 2,200 political prisoners, and they underscored the crucial role to be played by Suu Kyi.

Alistair Cook, a fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said Western nations will await "feedback" from Suu Kyi, who plans to consult the people of Myanmar.

"Should they want an end to the economic sanctions, then I am sure Aung San Suu Kyi and other pro-democracy leaders will articulate this. It will be then up to those states imposing economic sanctions to respond accordingly."

Suu Kyi led her party to a landslide win in Myanmar's 1990 elections, but the military never recognised the result and kept the Nobel peace prize laureate in detention for 15 of the past 21 years.

Critics of the sanctions say they have done little to undermine military rule and instead aggravated the deprivation of ordinary people in Myanmar.

The United States bans trade with companies tied to the junta in Myanmar. It also freezes such firms' assets and blocks international loans to the state.

The European Union also has sanctions freezing assets and businesses of junta figures, and blacklisting their travel, but it has continued some trade and investment such as in oil.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

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Singel-Minded: How Facebook Could Beat Google to Win the Net - Wired News (blog)

One, there’s so much interaction and information being shared inside Facebook that it has become a decent-sized replica of the Web inside the Web. And Google can’t crawl and analyze much of what happens in there, which is a problem when your goal is to organize the world’s information. Google is blind because much of what happens on Facebook remains in Facebook. (Ironically, this is due to users’ privacy settings, which Facebook has relentlessly tried to chip away at over the last four years.)

Two, Facebook knows who you are and has the right to use that information because you explicitly gave it to them. Google has different kinds of data that reveal a lot about who you are and what you are interested in — some of it very private. But very little of that data is information you explicitly told the company to share, and they’ve assiduously promised not to use your searching and e-mailing data to make a profile of you.

For years, that’s not been a problem for Google. They made the majority of their $7.29 billion in revenue in the third quarter from little text ads that show up next to and above search results, all keyed off the words you type into that little box. There’s no targeting involved. It doesn’t matter to Google’s AdWords system who you are, what you’ve searched for before, or what you do in other Google services (the only real targeting available in AdWords now is by location).

Google then expanded this program to run ads on other people’s sites, its Adsense product, which includes text and banner ads. For years, those ads were also purely contextual — based mostly off the words on the site running the ads. So if you ran a blog about your life as a dentist, your readers would see ads for floss and teeth whitening.

But then, in search of a new revenue stream, Google bought DoubleClick.

DoubleClick is one of the net’s display ad giants and has been serving banners ads on sites across the net since the early 1990s, using each ad serving spot as a way to track what you are reading to make inferences about your interests and build a pseudonomymous profile of you tied to a cookie in your browser.

But despite having a large number of sites running the ads (including Wired.com), AdSense/Doubleclick still accounts for only 30 percent of Google’s revenues. And, surprisingly, the targeting isn’t very good. You can go here to see what Google thinks it can deduce about you just from your browsing.

The problem is that Google built a wall between user search data and advertising — and the mammoth financial success of AdWords proved that the separation was fine at the time. A search query was likely to show intent, and it really didn’t matter to advertisers selling something what demographics the searcher belonged to.

Google kicked a hole in that wall in 2009 when it started including the videos you watch on YouTube as a way to target display ads ads at you, when you visit YouTube and non-Google sites.

Google isn’t talking about how well those ads perform compared to its purely contextual ones, or to DoubleClick’s tracking. But according to a Wall Street Journal story from this summer, Google is “soul-searching” over ways to turn what you do while logged into Google into data that can be used for targeting ads. That’s agonizing for Google since it’s always promised that it would keep that usage data separate from its ads.

But Facebook has never made that promise and its users don’t seem turned off by the targeted ads. They know they gave up the targeting data by typing it into their profile box, by becoming a fan of a company on Facebook or clicking a “Like” button. And now Facebook is training users to stay logged-in to Facebook all the time, thanks to Facebook Connect, the new system to log-in to mobile phone apps using their Facebook credentials and the ubiquitous Facebook “Like” buttons, which only work when you are logged into Facebook.

Why does that matter?

It matters because now you are your Facebook identity all over the net, telling every site that plays in the Facebook ecosystem exactly which dog you are, that you like playing fetch and what other dogs you run in a pack with.

Which means, it’s a virtual certainty that Facebook-targeted ads are going to start showing up in your hometown’s newspaper, your favorite online music site and hundreds of other sites you visit. And unlike the targeted third-party ad systems run by Microsoft, Google and others, there’s no need to track you around the net to try to infer from your reading and video viewing habits how old you are, where you went to college or what you are into.

Facebook knows all of that already because you told them. Facebook touts the story of a wedding photographer in Michigan who’s expanded his business tremendously simply by targeting ads at locals who mark themselves as “engaged.” Gabriel Weinberg, the one-man show behind the search engine DuckDuckGo, went so far as to create an ad targeted just at his wife.

Now, Facebook advertisers don’t actually know anything about you — at least not until you visit their site and handover your e-mail address. Instead, they use a simple panel in Facebook that lets them choose what categories to target, including age, location, education and gender — and then they can further target ads based on the things you have liked or added to your profile. Facebook runs the ads on company’s behalves’ but never turns over a list of who fits the criteria.

As a private company, Facebook doesn’t have to share public numbers, but a spokesman told Wired.com that advertisers are getting comfortable with Facebook, and it has thousands of advertisers. Revenues are estimated at $1.3 billion a year and rising, while investors and secondary markets are valuing the company at more than $40 billion on Sharespost, a private stock market.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has never loved ads. He kept them off his site as long as he could and even the ones that run now are relatively small, given how big and loud ads have gotten on the Web outside of Facebook. Some marketers complain that the Facebook ads just aren’t visible enough on the site, so they concentrate their efforts on getting people to “fan” their pages, in hopes the news that you like “Starbucks” makes it into the news feeds of your friends.

Facebook says it’s not working on any third-party ad system, and right now, it doesn’t need to. It’s flush with cash from investors, who’ve poured hundreds of millions into the company, without Zuckerberg losing control. It can bide its time, making Facebook even more central to the internet, building more relationships with top advertisers and convincing more sites to turn over their login systems to Facebook.

But it’s a near inevitability Facebook takes the same, logical step Google took and starts putting ads on third-party sites, targeting Facebook users reading the Washington Post, The Daily Beast, or your hometown newspaper.

Those ads could be splashy and dominant – the way advertisers like them these days, without distracting from the Facebook experience. They can also be very targeted, without Facebook having to hand over the info about that reader to the website.

It has the potential to be the opposite of Google’s Adwords/Adsense division, with huge profits coming from outside the site Facebook controls. Facebook could then grab a giant and dominating slice of an evergrowing online display ad market, while simultaneously making display ads actually targeted.

Facebook even makes the case that its ad system is less creepy than third-party systems that track you, mostly without you realizing it, around the web. While they do see what you are doing around the web when you are logged into your Facebook account and there is a “Like” button on that site, the company says it does not mine that information and deletes it after three months. No other third-party ad network comes close to forgetting so closely, and there are a lot of them.

Facebook’s advantage is that they probably don’t need to do this sort of tracking, given all the profile data, friend connections and likes that you’ve fed into their system. If advertisers and users get comfortable enough with ads based off that data, then there’s no reason that a site such as the New York Times wouldn’t want to turn over at least some of their ad sales to Facebook. Facebook, having spent years getting advertisers used to targeting the Facebook generation, would be able to charge very high rates to advertisers.

That’s because it would not only be able to do very granular ad targeting, but it could do so on a site with the reputation of the New York Times.

Online papers love the idea of targeted ads, because contextual ads just don’t work for news. What ad are you going to put up next to a story about a flood in India? An ad for Indian rugs? What about next to a story about a plane crash? Or even a story about a run-of-the-mill mayoral election?

One hope to fix that giant problem facing the media industry is to know who your readers are.

And that means building identity into the internet.

Facebook’s the only company to have done so, and that’s why Google is fighting to catch up to “social.”

There may not be room for more than one online identity company on the net, but Google has assembled a high-powered team of coders and thinkers, including Slide’s Max Levchin, the open social Messiah Chris Messina and Live Journal’s Brad Fitzpatrick, to take on the Facebook crew.

As the underdog in this fight, Google’s best weapon will be openness — tying to turn users against the walls of Facebook, while Facebook will try to be just open enough to keep users and partners from revolting. The best case scenario? Google figures out how to turn identity into an open protocol like e-mail — something you can host and control anywhere that lets you stitch together whatever services you like.

And if that effort fails, Facebook’s relatively benign child-king will be in control of what you can and can’t do with your identity on the internet.

And Mark Zuckerberg will have built a company worth more than $100 billion — and maybe worth more than Google.

Photo: escapedtowisconsin

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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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Election Day could bring historic split: Democrats lose House, keep Senate - Washington Post

The question around Washington today is not whether Nov. 2 will be a difficult day for the Democrats who control Congress, but rather how bad it will be.

Increasingly, it looks like the answer depends on which chamber of Congress you're following.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report now estimates that more than 90 Democratic House seats are potentially in play; on the Republican side of the aisle, it estimates that only nine appear in jeopardy. As a result, most leading forecasters say it is more likely that Republicans will win the 39 House seats they need to take control.

On the Senate side, however, the battle has narrowed to a handful of true nail-biters in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Colorado - all of which are likely to stay close to the end.

It would take a sweep of nearly all of them, improbable but not impossible, for the Republicans to pick up the 10 seats they need to gain control of the chamber. At this point, it's possible that Democrats will end up losing only three or four seats, and they will count that as a good night.

If these trends hold - if the Republicans do gain the House without also taking control of the Senate - that would represent a historic anomaly: Not since the election of 1930 has the House changed hands without the Senate following suit.

Two national party officials, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele and Democratic National Committee Chairman Timothy M. Kaine, gave very different predictions Sunday of what would happen on Election Day.

Steele said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that an unprecedented GOP wave would win control of both chambers as well as state legislatures, in a broad condemnation of President Obama and Democratic policies.

"The voters are tired of the fact that the federal government has not listened to them over the past two years, has moved in its own direction, at its own rhythm, and they want to pull back on that," Steele said.

Kaine, speaking on ABC's "This Week" pointed to strengthening poll numbers for his party's candidates as a sign that the Democratic base was getting energized.

"Four or five months ago, the Republicans thought they had a great chance at taking both houses," Kaine said. "For a variety of reasons, the Senate has gotten much more difficult for them. And again, we're seeing this week strong moves in polling for our Senate candidates" in several states.

Reflecting that potential trend, a Los Angeles Times/USC poll released Sunday found Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) eight points ahead of Republican challenger Carly Fiorina, and a Denver Post/SurveyUSA poll found Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.) tied with Republican challenger Ken Buck, whom he had trailed for months.

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Cassidy: Facebook s Mark Zuckerberg could build the education network - San Jose Mercury News

Print   Email   Font ResizeBy Mike Cassidy

Mercury News Columnist

Posted: 10/07/2010 12:16:35 PM PDTUpdated: 10/07/2010 02:28:16 PM PDT
So, I'm sitting in a dimly lit theater in Palo Alto waiting for Superman.

Not the one who wears a red cape. The one who wears a blue hoodie. Silicon Valley boy wonder, Mark Zuckerberg, star of stage, screen, "The Simpsons," Facebook and the universe in general, has invited a few of his 500 million friends to a special movie screening.

No. Not that movie. "The Social Network," Alan Sorkin's fictionalized account of the rise of Facebook and the guy who either invented it or stole it, is not what this night is about. This night is about education and "Waiting for Superman," a documentary that those looking to save our schools hope will do for the education disaster what "An Inconvenient Truth" has done

for the global warming disaster.

And Zuckerberg? He has a chance to become the education CEO, the guy who lubricates the national conversation with star power and tons of cash. He's a billionaire at 26, which gets people's attention -- even in Silicon Valley, where an army of entrepreneurs has made money nearly as fast as they've made progress.

Last month -- on Oprah, no less -- Zuckerberg dropped $100 million on the Newark, N.J., school system. The nationally televised largesse coincided with the run-up to the unflattering portrayal of Zuckerberg in "The Social Network," which opened to rave reviews and box-office supremacy. Naturally, cynics questioned the coincidence. Could it be that the man they call Zuck was trying to counter

the bad vibes from the Facebook blockbuster with a sudden spasm of philanthropy?

A lot to think about in a dimly lit theater as we wait for superman, who does stroll in (sans hoodie) and does exactly the right thing. He picks up a microphone to welcome the educators, community leaders, journalists, friends -- and he makes a joke.

"I'm not really inviting a lot of people to go to the movies right about now," Zuckerberg says, "but I thought this one was pretty important."

The crack filled the theater with laughter and cleared the air over whether Zuckerberg was going to spend much time worrying about those who question his motives. Not that it hasn't been a concern at Facebook HQ.

Larry Yu, Facebook's corporate communications director, told me before the Wednesday screening that the company's public relations staff didn't think announcing Zuckerberg's big gift just as the bothersome biopic was being released was such a hot idea.

"We recommended against the timing," Yu says, "because we thought it would be construed as an obvious ploy."

Which is pretty much how it was construed. But the time was right for New Jersey and two of its prominent politicians -- Gov. Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker -- who teamed up to join forces with Zuckerberg on the education initiative.

And so, it seems Facebook watchers (which is pretty much all of us, right?) are left with a choice: We can see Zuckerberg as a cynical and manipulative billionaire working overtime to spin public opinion. Or we can see him as an incredibly young and fabulously rich man who decided he would start giving away his money much earlier in life than some of those who have gone before him.

Alternatively, you can adopt my take, which is: Who cares? Who cares what motivates a guy to give millions to K-12 education? If you do care, I've got two words for you: Bill Gates. In the late 1990s, when Gates started paring his staggering wealth through philanthropy, he was blistered. The billionaire monopolist was simply buying his way into heaven, critics cried. His generosity was just a way to take the heat off Microsoft, which was being skewered in public opinion and the courts for being anti-competitive.

And maybe it was pure PR. But who cares? Gates just kept giving, and I'd like to hear a coherent argument now that the man doesn't believe in what he's doing, which is helping run the world's largest charitable foundation.

Zuckerberg is young. He's connected. He has a platform to encourage other moguls to follow his lead.

Yu says he doesn't know whether his boss has decided to make K-12 education his signature philanthropic cause. But in the dimly lit theater, Zuckerberg talks about how he wants his $100 million to spur innovations and initiatives that can be replicated across the country.

Here's hope then that Superman's help could be coming to a school district near you.

Contact Mike Cassidy at mcassidy@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5536. Follow him at Twitter.com/mikecassidy.

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Windows Phone 7: Backwards Incompatibility Could Limit Appeal - InformationWeek

With the introduction of Windows Phone 7 next week, Microsoft is looking to break from past efforts in the mobile space that have sputtered in the face of renewed competition from Apple and Google. So much so that Microsoft deliberately chose not to make its new phone OS backwards compatible with the older Windows Mobile operating system.
(click image for larger view)
Microsoft's Windows 7 Phone Revealed

The decision allows Microsoft to make a fresh start in the mobile arena, but it also could limit Windows Phone 7's appeal to enterprises, many of whom may be unwilling to scrap existing investments in Windows Mobile to move to the new platform.

And while the enterprise mobile market is largely dominated anyway by RIM, with its corporate-friendly Blackberry devices, Microsoft's move to a brand new mobile environment could lessen its traction with the corporate customers it does have.

Such concerns came to light recently at a roundtable of U.S. Army software developers who, through an internal competition, had been tasked with building mobile apps for use on the battlefield and in other aspects of army life.

One participant, Major Gregory Motes, who is chief of the Army's Information Dissemination Management Division, specifically opted not to have his team develop their apps for the Windows environment because of the backwards compatibility issue.

"The problem we have with Windows Mobile is, right around the time we were starting on this, [Microsoft] announced Windows Phone 7 that would be coming out the holidays of this year," Motes said at the roundtable, according to a transcript of the August event.

"And so as we are going through the process of what we wanted to choose to learn on, you know, choosing to learn on Windows Mobile 6.1 or Windows Mobile 6.5 didn't make much sense to us because 7 was coming out and because it was announced that 7 would not be backwards compatible," said Motes.

Motes, whose team won the competition with a physical fitness app for Army personnel, ultimately decided to develop the app for Apple's iPhone.

While admittedly anecdotal, it's not unlikely that decisions like that taken by Motes and his team are currently playing out in IT shops across corporate America. In Microsoft's favor is the fact that Windows Phone 7 leverages many existing Windows development tools with which developers are already familiar.

But the fact the platform is not backwards compatible with Windows Mobile means Windows Phone 7 will not enjoy the upgrade path advantage that helps Microsoft maintain traction with its Windows PC customers whenever it comes out with a new version of its desktop and server OS.

It may be for the latter reason that Gartner expects Windows Phone 7 to have only minimal impact on the mobile market. Gartner predicts the release of Windows Phone 7 will help bump Microsoft's share of the worldwide market from 4.7% in 2010 to 5.2% in 2011, but says the company's share will ultimately decline to just 3.9% by 2014.

Developers won't have to wait too much longer to decide whether to support Windows Phone 7. Microsoft will formally introduce the platform Monday at a launch event in New York City.

The server market is changing rapidly. In this report, we look into the technological advances driving the server market forward, as well as the server strategies of Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Oracle-Sun, Cisco, and other vendors. Download it here (registration required).

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Steven Hayes Could Face The Death Penalty - ABC News

Steven Hayes was found guilty today in the deadly home invasion that left a woman and her two daughters brutalized and murdered, making him eligible for the death penalty.

The jury deliberated for several hours before finding Hayes guilty of 16 of the 17 counts he faced. Hayes was convicted of six capital crimes, including the murder and kidnapping of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, all of which are punishable by execution.

As the verdict was read, Dr. William Petit, the only survivor of the slaughter, clutched his sister but remained stoic. Relatives of his slain wife wept while Hayes hung his head.

Hayes, 47, was quickly handcuffed and led out of the courtroom by officers.

As he left the courthouse, Petit thanked the jury for their "appropriate verdict" and said he and his family had kept their "faith in God that justice would be served."

"There is some relief, but my family is still gone. [The verdict] doesn't bring them back, it doesn't bring back the home that we had, but certainly a guilty verdict is a much better sense of relief than a verdict of not guilty," said Petit.

Petit still faces a penalty trial to determine whether Hayes is to be executed or face life in prison. That is scheduled to begin on Oct. 18.

Petit made clear he will also attend the trial for Hayes' accomplice although he said he gets a "little nausea" each time he heads to court to hear the grisly details of his family's murders.

"If your family was destroyed by evil, you would be there for your family. It's the only thing you can do for your family," said Petit.

"Do I look foward to this every day? No," said Petit. "But I do it for my family and I think all of you would do the same thing for your families."

Rev. Richard Hawke, the father of Petit-Hawke, told press gathered by the Connecticut courtroom, ""We are pleased with the verdict… We feel justice is being served."

Hayes was not convicted of first degree arson, a charge that the jury had questioned the judge about during deliberations. Asked by the jury whether Hayes' pouring gasoline in the Petit's home was the same thing as lighting a match, the judge had answered "no."

Petit said he couldn't comment on the not guilty charge and whether he was disappointed by it because he wasn't sure "he understood it."

Only one individual has been executed in Connecticut since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. That execution occurred in 2005 and was of serial killer Michael Ross, also known as the Roadside Strangler.

If sentenced to die, Hayes will join 10 others who are currently on Connecticut's death row.

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