Boeing Completes World’s First All-Electric Propulsion Satellites

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Jan. 9, 2015 – Boeing [NYSE: BA] has completed production of the world’s first all-electric propulsion satellites as preparations continue to launch the satellites, as a vertically stacked pair, next month.



Boeing Completes World’s First All-Electric Propulsion Satellites

YouTube Space Lab Winners from U.S. and Egypt Watch Their Experiments LIVE From Space on Thursday, September 13

Press release:

YouTube Space Lab Winners from U.S. and Egypt Watch Their Experiments LIVE From Space on Thursday, September 13

Live Stream Hosted by Bill Nye “The Science Guy” and transmitted from the International Space Station to the world via YouTube

New York, NY & London, England (August 29, 2012) – YouTube and Lenovo today announced the culmination of the YouTube Space Lab competition in which astronauts will reveal the results of the two winning experiments live from the International Space Station (ISS) and share them with to the world on YouTube.  The live stream will connect the ISS to YouTube’s London creator space on Thursday, September 13 beginning at 1:30 PM GMT/8:30 AM EST and will be hosted by Bill Nye “The Science Guy” and include the two global winners, Amr Mohamed from Alexandria, Egypt; and Dorothy Chen and Sara Ma, from Troy, Michigan in the U.S.
YouTube Space Lab, which launched in October 2011 with partners including Space Adventures and in cooperation with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), is a worldwide science competition that challenged 14-18 year-olds to design a science experiment that can be performed in space.  The world will now see the winning experiments performed by astronaut Sunita Williams during a live stream on YouTube from 250 miles above Earth aboard the ISS.  The forty-minute live program will begin with host Bill Nye interviewing the global winners and special guests via Google+ Hangout, and feature the story of Space Lab told through videos since its launch last year. Then, NASA's Mission Control Center will connect the studio to the ISS for a conversation with U.S. astronaut, Sunita Williams, and the results of the winning experiments.  
"Students from around the world came up with experiments that could only be performed where there is no gravity— the International Space Station,” said Bill Nye “The Science Guy” and host of the YouTube Space Lab live stream event.  “You and I will meet the winning young scientists and talk with astronauts in orbit.  So tune in to YouTube Space Lab and turn it up loud." 
Amr Mohamed (17-18 year old age group) and Dorothy Chen and Sara Ma  (14-16 year old age group) were named the winners at a ceremony in Washington, DC, in March.  The event was attended by Space Lab partners including NASA, ESA, and JAXA.  Now these winners will discuss the results of their experiments with the astronauts performing them aboard the ISS.
Amr Mohamed, 18, came up with an experiment to explore the question: “Can you teach an old spider new tricks?” As part of his prize, he went to Russia for a one-of-a-kind astronaut training experience in Star City, Russia, the training center for Russian cosmonauts. He proposed investigating the effects of microgravity on how the zebra spider catches its prey, and whether it could adapt its behavior in space.
Dorothy Chen and Sara Ma, both 16, created an experiment that asks: “Could alien superbugs cure disease on Earth?”.  Their experiment investigates whether compounds and nutrients can block bacterial growth differently in microgravity, which ultimately could lead a path to fighting germs more effectively on Earth.  As part of their prize, Dorothy and Sara toured JAXA facilities and watched the rocket with the winning experiments blast off from southern Japan.
Space Lab founder, Google’s Zahaan Bharmal added, “Our hope is that this live stream from space will be the world’s largest, coolest scientific classroom. Today’s Space Lab winners - as well as the millions of other young minds watching the stream on YouTube - represent tomorrow’s space explorers. They may one day walk on Mars!”
“For nearly 20 years – aboard the ISS and numerous space shuttle missions -- Lenovo ThinkPad laptops have played a critical role in space exploration and research,” said Tracey Trachta, vice president, Brand Experience, Global Marketing, Lenovo. “The YouTube Space Lab competition places technology and opportunity into the hands of tomorrow’s space explorers, and we’re thrilled to be a part of such an effort.”
For more information, please visit: https://sites.google.com/site/ytspacelab/press.
About YouTube
YouTube is the world’s largest online video community, allowing millions of people to discover, watch, and share original videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original-content creators and advertisers large and small. YouTube, LLC, is based in San Bruno, California, and is a subsidiary of Google Inc.
About Lenovo
Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is a $US21 billion personal technology company serving customers in more than 160 countries, and the world’s second-largest PC vendor. Dedicated to building exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile internet devices, Lenovo’s business is built on product innovation, a highly-efficient global supply chain and strong strategic execution.  Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services. Its product lines include legendary Think-branded commercial PCs and Idea-branded consumer PCs, as well as servers, workstations, and a family of mobile Internet devices, including tablets and smart phones. Lenovo has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina.  For more information see www.lenovo.com.
About Space Adventures
Space Adventures, the company that organized the flights for the world's first private space explorers, is headquartered in Vienna, Va. with an office in Moscow. It offers a variety of programs such as the availability today for spaceflight missions to the International Space Station and around the moon, cosmonaut training, spaceflight qualification programs and reservations on future suborbital spacecraft.  A wholly owned subsidiary, ZERO-G (www.gozerog.com) conducts weightless flights.  The company's orbital spaceflight clients include Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Greg Olsen, Anousheh Ansari, Charles Simonyi, Richard Garriott and Guy Laliberté. Cumulatively, Space Adventures’ clients have spent almost three months in space, traveling over 36 million miles. For more information, please visit www.spaceadventures.com.

EMC Press Release: BRE Bank SA Implements EMC Symmetrix VMAX

BRE Bank SA Implements EMC Symmetrix VMAX

Improves Performance, Scalability and Availability with “No Compromise” Enterprise Storage

WARSAW, Poland - March 14, 2012

EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC) today announced that BRE Bank SA has successfully completed its implementation of EMC® Symmetrix® VMAX™ enterprise storage systems. BRE Bank selected EMC VMAX, the world's most powerful, trusted and smart enterprise storage, as the foundation for the its retail banking applications, on which the bank's 3.4 million mBank and MultiBank customers in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia depend on for 25 million daily transactions. BRE Bank has been standardizing its mission-critical applications on EMC enterprise storage systems for years, reaffirming the bank's confidence in choosing EMC VMAX to replace its existing EMC storage system.

Customer Benefits:

• Increased Performance — EMC VMAX has enabled BRE Bank to improve response times for online transactions and reduce batch processing times.
• Increased Scalability — With the EMC VMAX, BRE Bank is able to scale to accommodate its fast-growing demand for disk space without compromising performance or shutting down applications.
• Enterprise Class Five-9s Availability — Thanks to the world's most trusted and powerful enterprise storage system, BRE Bank can provide its 3.4 million customers with continuous exceptional service and uninterrupted access to its retail banking applications 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, processing about 25 million transactions every day.

Customer Quote:

Przemysław Dygdoń, Data Center Director, BRE Bank SA

"We have been using EMC solutions for years. These systems have proven to be reliable and efficient, allowing our customers to access retail banking services without interruption on a 24/7 basis. EMC VMAX has met all of our functional requirements and, with its innovative features, delivered a real improvement in I/O performance under both online and batch processing scenarios. Additionally, the new solution provides sufficient upgradeability in terms of capacity and performance to support our needs for a period of four to five years."

About EMC

EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.

News Release from GE

21 February 2012

GE Announces Upgraded Video Compression Module to Enhance Military Decision Making and Troop Safety

 

ICS-8580 rugged XMC responds to growing use of video in conflict zones

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA February 21, 2012 GE Intelligent Platforms today announced an enhanced version of the ICS-8580 rugged high definitionvideo compression XMC module. Designed in response to the growing use of video in a broad range of defense applications, it allows very high quality moving images to be captured, transmitted and stored at very high speed with very low latency and with minimal consumption of precious bandwidth or disk space. As such, it can make a significant contribution to superior decision making and improved troop safety.

The ICS-8580 can capture video inputs and archive or stream them overEthernet, managing multiple streams and performing capture, manipulation, conversion, compression, storage, decompression and video display. Its rugged XMC form factor means that it is compact, lightweight and consumes little power, enabling it to be easily deployed in systems destined for deployment in harsh environments that are constrained by size, weight and power (SWaP).

The original version of the ICS-8580 has been widely deployed in programs such as NASA’s Global Hawk initiative.

Specifically, the enhancements from the previous version of the ICS-8580 include:

• The provision of two DSPs, each of which can be configured as an encoder or decoder, providing superior system flexibility.
• Full support for PCI Express, allowing uncompressed data to be uploaded and downloaded and improving configurability within custom systems
• Provision of an SDK (software development kit) for faster integration with remote configuration options
• Inclusion of six inputs and four outputs for flexible pass-through modes, allowing the use of any front end connector and facilitating integration with legacy systems
• Out of the box ability to connect to a NAS (network-attached storage) for easier integration.
• Support for the synchronization of stereo or mono sound for improved flexibility.

“The increasing deployment of unmanned vehicles by military organizations around the world is increasing demand for the use of video for intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance applications,” said Rod Rice, General Manager, Military & Aerospace Products, GE Intelligent Platforms. “The ICS-8580 provides a substantial step forward in its ability to stream video, and provides a solution for a new realm of sophisticated, demanding applications.”

In video capture and transmission, the primary challenge is how to maintain video quality in order to maximize critical detail while minimizing the use of bandwidth by implementing highly efficient algorithms: transmitting ‘raw’, unprocessed high definition video data at very high speed requires bandwidth that is rarely available in, for example, air-to-ground applications. Similarly, storage of high definition video data – for later review and analysis, for example - in its uncompressed form can require terabytes of disk space.

The ICS-8580 features H.264 video compression/decompression (codec) technology, which is widely regarded as being the optimum solution: it is considered to be up to 3x as efficient as other codec solutions, allowing vital image detail to be retained while occupying the minimum possible bandwidth or storage.

At the heart of the ICS-8580 lies a combination of a versatile FPGA device coupled with powerful dual DSP signal processors, providing unparalleled compute power for video applications. The FPGA enables video switching, format conversions, scaling, blending and other processing functions while the dual DSP processors enable multichannel video compression and decompression for over 100x reduction in bandwidth with minimal impact on video quality. It can handle up to two channels of full HD (1080p30) or UXGA (1,600 x 1,200 @ 30 frames/second) video, or up to four channels of standard definition video.

For more information: http://defense.ge-ip.com/products/3525

Energy Spurs Recovery in Houston

Excerpt from an article in The New York Times
Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Energy Spurs a Recovery in Houston Real Estate 

By KRISTINA SHEVORY

HOUSTON — In most cities, companies are holding tight, mothballing office expansions and delaying new hires. But not in Houston.

Powered by a rise in oil prices and a shale exploration boom, Houston is the first major metropolitan region to regain all the jobs it lost in the recession. The region added about 76,000 jobs last year, according to the Texas Workforce Commission, and is on pace to pick up tens of thousands more this year.

Oil and gas companies, from the biggest names like Exxon Mobil to the smallest independents, are dusting off plans to expand, relocate or put up new buildings. Last year, 1.8 million square feet of commercial space was vacuumed up, and real estate brokers expect the same or greater this year. “No question, it’s energy,” said Jim Arket, a senior vice president at Grubb & Ellis in Houston. “That’s been the plus multiplier of Houston.”

The resurgence can be partly tied to the lifting in fall 2010 of the government moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill. The bulk of the gulf’s drilling and profits comes from those offshore waters. Shale drilling has also bolstered balance sheets.

Nexen, a Canadian company, is moving its American headquarters from Plano, Tex., to Houston after it received permits to restart deepwater drilling in the gulf. “Houston is quite clearly the place to be for a deepwater operator,” said Grant Dreger, the vice president for finance and administration at Nexen Petroleum U.S.A. “You have loads of deepwater talent, and it’s home to the majority of our joint venture partners.”

Facebook's Mobility Challenge

Excerpt from an article in The New York Times.

Monday, February 06, 2012,

Facebook’s Mobility Challenge

By JENNA WORTHAM

Lots of people love their cellphones. Facebook, so far, is not a big fan.

Amid the jaw-dropping financial figures the company revealed last week when it filed for a public offering was an interesting admission. Although more than half of its 845 million members log into Facebook on a mobile device, the company has not yet found a way to make real money from that use.

“We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven,” the company said in its review of the risks it faces.

In a world that is rapidly moving toward an era of mobile computing, this is a troubling issue for Silicon Valley’s brightest star — particularly since much of Facebook’s growth right now is in countries like Chile, Turkey, Venezuela and Brazil, where people largely have access to the Internet using cellphones.

Facebook is not the only company struggling to translate the success of its Web site to mobile devices, where screen space is at a premium and people have little patience for clutter or slow loading times. It is a problem that plagues companies as diverse as news publishers and the streaming radio service Pandora, and it is likely to loom larger. There were more global shipments of smartphones than of personal computers in 2011, according to a recent report from Canalys, a research firm.

But the issue seems particularly urgent in the case of Facebook, which is wildly popular among its users and is seen as a company of the future, a hybrid of social hub and information conduit, platform and publisher. In other words, if Facebook cannot figure it out, who can?

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