After the first launch attempt was aborted due to a false telemetry reading, the second launch attempt of the Falcon 9 rocket was flawless. The rocket flew above the Atlantic Ocean and reached the orbit in under ten minutes. Having separated from the Falcon 9 rocket, the Dragon space craft orbited the earth gathering vital data for future projects. After re-entering the atmosphere, it opened its parachute and landed in the Pacific Ocean. The SpaceX team have recovered the capsule.

This mission was the first of its kind conducted by a non-state agency. Considering the success of the Falcon 9 rocket, similar technology shall be employed in future projects related to private space ships. The Dragon space ship, at its present capacity, shall be able to carry seven astronauts into outer space. Speculations are soaring high, with talks of using the Falcon 9 rockets to ferry astronauts and cargo in private space ships to and from the International Space Station, especially after NASA Administrator Charles Bolden commented, “We’re witnessing the dawn of a new era whose ultimate result could be routine, safe access to space, with industry, academia, other agencies and other governments regularly sending payloads and people to low Earth orbit.”

“There’s so much that can go wrong and it all went right,” said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, in a statement. “I’m sort of in semi-shock,” said Musk, who founded PayPal before SpaceX.

Some believe SpaceX could be used to launch private contractors to the ISS following the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle fleet next year. President Obama is behind this, and may look at the company for more deep space missions—and of course, putting a human on Mars. That is decades away of course, but would provide scientists with millions in grants for “environmental research.” Although many critics in Congress are against this, as it will cost jobs throughout the Florida Spacecoast, NASA isn’t one to look lightly on a second place in the space race behind Russia or China.

Photographs: Chris Thomson

[SpaceX]

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Recent reports indicate that Steve Jobs will be seen on-stage with News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch on December 9 at the launch of a tablet newspaper The Daily have led to speculations that The Daily may very well be offered as an app in the Apple App Store. According to Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, “Developers at News Corp. building the app already have preliminary documentation on the new subscription billing APIs from Apple.”

On a similar tone, a href=”http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/11/rumors-ios-4-3-will-offer-app-subscriptions-as-early-as-december/”>Macstories’ Federico Viticci has reported December 13 as the launch date of iOS 4.3, also adding that content based recurring subscriptions shall be a part of the iOS 4.3 update.

Considering the fact that both News Corp. and Apple are playing a huge role in The Daily, it would be plausible to assume that the iOS 4.3 update can most probably be on its way in mid-December itself so that it almost co-incides with the launch of The Daily. Richard Branson is also rumored to be releasing a competitor to Murdoch’s “Daily” called “Project”. This is expected to be announced Monday.

As regards to the iOS update, it is believed that a subscription based recurring billing system will help increase the number of media applications on iTunes too such as newspapers, TV, magazines, etc. Presently, many subscription based content providers have apps for iOS, but they also need to establish separate recurrent billing accounts for iTunes. Obviously so, if a user is paying every week for a newspaper or any other media content, the process would have to be made simpler than its present state and thus, the iOS 4.3 update becomes all the more vital.

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The proposed e-paper uses electrowetting (a process of moving colored pigments from pixel to pixel using electronic charges) on a paper substrate. Electrowetting consumes lesser power and outperforms the present day E-ink electrophoretic screens in terms of better color, faster response times and video capability.

Firms such as Liquavista and Plastic Logic already are in possession of similar technology, but they employ electrowetting on the surface of glass instead of paper. The researchers at Cincinnati claim that their model offers the same results on paper and at the same time provides greater flexibility at reduced cost.

“One of the main goals of e-paper is to replicate the look and feel of actual ink on paper. We have, therefore, investigated the use of paper as the perfect substrate for EW devices to accomplish e-paper on paper,” claim researchers Steckl and Kim. “In general, this is an elegant method for reducing device complexity and cost, resulting in one-time-use devices that can be totally disposed after use.”

For best results, the EW process involves a specific grade of paper with a particular surface coating, roughness, thickness, water uptake and a precise contact angle at which the electrowetted material is applied to the paper support. Quite obviously, the industrial model of the process is not making its debut anytime sooner than three or five years. Electrowetted glass, on the other hand, may appear sometime in the next year itself.

Source:  University of Cincinnati Press Release

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The Chengdu plant has already started “mass production” of the iPad and is also expected to become a “major supply base” in the first quarter of 2011, according to a Digitimes report. The report also mentions, “iPad 2 is expected to launch by the end of the first quarter of 2011 with Foxconn Precision Component and Foxlink all becoming component suppliers. Meanwhile, Chimei Innolux (CMI), which is also related to the Foxconn Group, is expected to supply panels for iPad 2.”

The new plant shall indeed increase the iPad’s market availability. At present, the biggest production unit of the region is located at Shenzhen with a production capacity of 2.5 million per month. In comparison, Foxconn’s Chengdu unit is expected to reach an output of 40 million devices per month.

Source: Micgadget via Digitimes

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Even though the market for Tablet PCs is limited when compared to that of smartphones or netbooks (in terms of number of units sold), most manufacturers and vendors continue to remain hopeful that the trends might turn favorable in the coming year, but with the current air surrounding the release of iPad 2, such hopes may perhaps not be fulfilled so easily. Judging by the rumors, it is expected that most Tablet PCs shall lag behind Apple’s iPad 2 in quarter 3 of 2011, after a stiff competition in Q2.

It is noteworthy that many vendors such as Samsung Electronics, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and RIM have already launched or will launch at the same time of iPad 2, their respective Tablet PCs, and the projected sales of Tablet PCs in 2011 are being predicted to be somewhere around 45-55 million units. However, such figures do appear debatable and there also seems to be a dangerous probability of overstocked inventories being pooled with the vendors (as happened with netbooks in several markets of Europe and Asia).

The official date of the launch of iPad 2 is still anyone’s guess, but rumors indicate April 2011. With Intel making quick progress on its Oak Trail platform and Google also planning to launch a Tablet PC-specific version of Android by March-April 2011, the competition in the Tablet PC market is surely expected to get stiffer in the coming year. In terms of specifications, we can assume a camera or two (for video conferencing) will not be missed this time around, thinner and lighter body, and most likely a retina display. We don’t expect the screen size to change, since Steve Jobs recently expressed his comments about the 7-inch Galaxy Tab.

Source: Digitimes

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Samsung Galaxy Tab is one of the most anticipated and most popular tablets. Running the latest OS and packed with a wide variety of apps, the Galaxy Tab sure looks good.

Of late, a move by Samsung has eliminated the option of making phone calls from all Galaxy Tab devices destined for the US market. While Galaxy Tab pieces built in Europe and elsewhere came with no such restrictions on either outgoing or incoming calls, American users were denied the luxury of making calls from their Galaxy Tab tablets.

However, the call barring feature imposed by Samsung has hacked by the developers at XDA. This means that the T-Mobile USA variant of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab devices too can be used for making phone calls.

But as with any unofficial and under-the-radar improvisation, the Galaxy Tab unlocking procedure is bit tricky and thus caution must be used. If you plan to unlock your device be sure to create a full backup first.

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GSMA also claims they are pooling together a group of ‘technical experts’ who are at ease with every major telecom operator around the world. These ‘experts’, shall assess the pulse of the market for the embedded SIM cards. The assessment is due to begin in January 2011 and the launch of embedded SIM cards, if everything goes as planned by GSMA, shall be in 2012.

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Well, apparently RIM recently posted a video comparing their upcoming Playbook tablet’s mobile browser to that of the iPad. So? No harm done in publicizing your product, right? Right, the only catch is that the said video, apart from favoring RIM’s tablet, also did its bit to highlight iPad browser’s weak point (no Flash support, slow page loading speed, lack of pixel to pixel rendering fidelity, lack of high end Javascript and HTML5 – there are too many of them, by the way).

Perhaps RIM just wants to show the world that their tablet’s browser, apart from supporting cutting edge stuff like HTML5, also provides the added bonus of Flash support, unlike that of the iPad. Jim Balsillie, CEO of RIM, also openly stated the same, “You don’t need an app for the web,” (touching upon the fact that most iOS apps are mere frontend implementations of web services).

Even though this isn’t the first time Balsillie has attacked Apple or Steve Jobs, one wonders the motive behind it anyway! This is because RIM devices such as the Blackberry smartphones are taking a beating not from the iPad or iPhone, but rather from Android powered machines. Guess there’s too many of Android devices to attack, so RIM just chose the stationary object (Apple) to hit at.

Plus, talking about giants such as Apple gives you free publicity, no matter who you are. And to further delve deeper, RIM has sensed the fact that the iPad, though initially eyeing the youngsters, has managed to make an impact among the business users (read: RIM stronghold). Obviously, RIM has to counter-attack, and it will not be shocking if the present video is followed by other similar ones.

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What does it take to shock the world? The answer is simple: innovation. And when it comes to innovation in the automobile sector, Volvo, arguably stands apart.

At the LA Auto Show, Volvo came up with a vehicle concept that may seem bizarre to some, cool to many and splendid to most. Yes, we are talking about the Air Motion Concept – a nearly 1000 pound four seater enclosed in a carbon-fiber clamshell. Alright, you may ask, so what exactly does it use? An eco-friendly gas kit? An electric motor? Actually, neither! The Air Motion Concept runs on a tank full of compressed air. And it doesn’t stop there, as Volvo even went as far as proposing wind-powered refueling stations in order to ensure that the power for the Air Motion Concept is borne solely out of thin air. Okay, in my opinion the last bit indeed sounds a tad bit exaggerated.

To quote from Volvo, the idea behind the Air Motion Concept is to minimize “weight and complexity while maximizing driver enjoyment.” Not a bad one indeed!

They surely have started on the right track as far as minimizing of complexity is concerned. The pneumatic engine doesn’t quite heat up as much as regular combustion ones (so this means you may, as well, bid farewell to all your radiator woes). The trade-off shall lie in the resulting limited range possibility, but that seems plausible enough as long the as pneumatic engine delivers all that is expected out of it.

Volvo did not bother providing any performance stats, so the ultimate output is anyone’s guess. But lightweight cars are, more often than not, well loved by drivers and the Air Motion Concept should be no exception. Giving it a spin shall surely be a joy ride, to say the least. Other air powered cars exist on the market today, but Volvo’s concept looks a bit more “sporty” and sadly something we won’t see for another decade.

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On the other hand, Hard Disk Drive (HDD) prices have gone up substantially in the fourth quarter of 2010. The rise in HDD pricing can be attributed to the fact that all major Hard Disk Drive manufacturers, including the likes of Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and Hitachi GST, have recently cut down their production capacity in the final quarter of 2010. Judging by unofficial figures, the price rise in the HDD segment is estimated to be as high as 4-5% (for 500 GB models).

Since the SSD prices have shown a decline and most major manufacturers — such as Samsung Electronics, Micron, Intel, Toshiba and Hynix — have all shown an affection for the development of 20nm processes, it is expected that the sales of SSDs shall rise by year end.

So does this imply that SSD may finally pose a threat to HDD? No, definitely not. With Solid State Drives still 10 times costlier than traditional Hard Disk Drives, the fall in price won’t affect the HDD sales much. Yet, for those who were inhibited by the awkwardly high pricing of Solid State Drives, 2010 year end may perhaps be the much anticipated and eagerly awaited ‘auspicious’ occasion to buy one!

Source: Digitimes

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