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Friday, 13 December 2013
Microsoft set to launch first original programming for Xbox One in early 2014
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Moto X Touchless Control update lets you speak your unlock code
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Problemas con el sistema de refrigeración del segmento estadounidense de la Estación Espacial Internacional
Situación del módulo que contiene la válvula que está fallando
Desde el miércoles 12 de diciembre el segmento estadounidense de la Estación Espacial Internacional está operando con uno sólo de sus dos circuitos de refrigeración externos, todo parece indicar que por el fallo de una válvula que se usa para regular la temperatura del amoníaco que circula por este.
La EEI cuenta con dos tipos de sistemas de protección térmica, el pasivo y el activo para mantener el control de la temperatura.
El pasivo está formado por materiales reflectantes usados en el exterior, aislantes colocados en las paredes de esta, o tubos termosifón bifásicos como las tuberías que se ven en algunos ordenadores para tal efecto.
En activo se encarga por su parte de recoger el calor generado por los propios astronautas y los equipos de a bordo y de sacarlo al exterior para disiparlo al espacio.
En el segmento estadounidense este sistema activo está formado a su vez por dos subsistemas, uno en el interior de los módulos que usa agua que circula a 4 y 17 grados centígrados por dos bucles distintos, y otro en el exterior el External Active Thermal Control System que usa amoníaco, también con dos bucles.
El calor que recoge el sistema interior se transfiere al exterior mediante unos intercambiadores de calor y es disipado finalmente al espacio mediante radiadores; el amoníaco circula continuamente entre los intercambiadores de calor y los radiadores.
Tal y como puede leerse en Space Station encounters Thermal Control System Failure el que ha fallado es el conocido como bucle A de los externos, y todo parece indicar que es a causa de la válvula que mantiene el control de la temperatura mezclando amoníaco frío que viene de los radiadores con amoníaco todavía no enfriado.
Parece que la válvula no se cierra, o al menos no del todo, con lo que la temperatura del bucle A comenzó a bajar y bajar hasta quedar por debajo de los límites operativos, con lo que los sistemas de control procedieron a cerrar el bucle A.
Los parámetros del sistema se pueden seguir en directo en Space Station Live!
Esto ha supuesto el tener que apagar además un montón de sistemas internos de la EEI para no sobrecargar el bucle B, sistemas que incluyen más o menos la mitad de los del Nodo 2, del Columbus, y de Kibo, los de las esclusas, algunas luces y detectores de humo, y la cámara que se usa para acoplar naves de carga a la EEI.
Esto hace que, además de tener el segmento estadounidense de la Estación y los astronautas, que no pueden hacer buena parte del trabajo programado, a medio gas, haya que haber pospuesto el lanzamiento de la primera misión regular de una cápsula de carga Cygnus.
Los equipos de tierra trabajan para acabar de identificar el problema, estudiando incluso si puede ser un problema con el software de control de la unidad en la que está instalada la válvula, pero todo parece indicar que habrá que realizar un paseo espacial de contingencia, que no de emergencia, para reemplazar el módulo que contiene la válvula en cuestión, para el que hay tres repuestos a bordo.
Por de pronto los tripulantes no corren ningún tipo de peligro, aunque desde luego lo ideal sería solucionar el problema lo antes posible ya que en esta configuración los sistemas de la Estación no son redundantes y si fallara también el circuito B habría un serio problema, pues habría que abandonar, al menos de forma temporal, el segmento estadounidense de esta, y pasar a todos los astronautas el segmento ruso.
Habría, además, que reducir la actividad en este, ya que aunque cada módulo del segmento ruso tiene sistemas de refrigeración internos y externos propios, no están diseñados para una carga tan grande.
Pero con un poco de suerte la cosa no se pondrá tan chunga.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/ciencia/problemas-sistema-refrigeracion-segmento-estadounidense-estacion-espacial-internacional.html
Sprint Reportedly Considering Merger With T-Mobile
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Microsoft Lures Gmail Users With Outlook.com Import Tool
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Engadget Podcast 372 - 12.12.13
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Pebble Update Adds 'Do Not Disturb' Mode
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The best tablet deals of the week: 12.13.13
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Founder Stories: Meet The Young Makers And Educators Behind The Menlo App Academy
This is a very special edition of “Founder Stories.”
First, this installment features the youngest entrepreneurs to be on our show, Max Colbert & Matthew Dillabough, who founded The Menlo App Academy back in 2011 when they were only 12 years old. The Academy focuses on teaching students between grades 6-9 how to develop applications for Apple’s iOS. In about two years, the Academy has completed roughly 15 classes and taught close to 150 students.
Wow.
Second, in this discussion, Colbert and Dillabough share more of the backstory of how they started The Academy, beginning with noticing their friends also wanted to learn how to code. With a busy schedule of school, sports, and other activities, the founders somehow find the time to grow enrollment, market both online and offline, and did their part to fulfill their mission of helping kids have the option to be exposed to computer literacy. Additionally, the duo talk about the subtle dynamics created when kids teach other kids (as opposed to adults teaching kids), and the importance of communicating with all of their team members as the number of teachers grows.
Most striking, to me, is the calm maturity both Colbert and Dillabough hold. Their intentions are pure, at a time in our country where our school children should (I believe) be exposed to literacy with machines and computer science to be better prepared for tomorrow’s world.
Editor’s Note: Michael Abbott is a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, previously Twitter’s VP of Engineering, and a founder himself. Mike also writes a blog called uncapitalized. You can follow him on Twitter @mabb0tt.
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How Oculus Plans To Be Riding High When The Virtual Reality Wave Breaks
A company that was conceived less than a year ago today announced its Series B round of funding late last night, with a massive raise of $75 million to add to its existing $16 million Series A and $2.4 million in Kickstarter crowdfunding dollars. That company is Oculus Rift: A virtual reality headset dreamt up by Gaikai veteran Brendan Iribe and a team of other startup vets. With nearly $100 million invested, expectations are huge, but the company is ready to meet those expectations, Iribe tells TechCrunch, and exceed them with a vision of the future that blurs the line between the virtual and the real.
Why So Much Money, So Fast
The Rift has already managed to sell over 42,000 units prior to its consumer launch, via development kits that are admittedly rough around the edges, according to Iribe. That’s impressive enough, but it’s not what’s selling investors like Marc Andreessen and game industry legends like John Carmack on the Rift – that’s the experience provided by the next-generation prototype, which is functionally the same as what we’ll see from the first consumer device, Iribe says, but which has been used by only a few hundred people at most as of right now.
Once the new prototype was perfected, Iribe got in touch with Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon, to say that they’d achieved what they’d set out to do and asked how soon they could come in to see it. The combination of the prototype demonstration, and former id founder and Doom creator John Carmack explaining his vision of where he sees the entire Oculus project headed “pretty much convinced them on the spot,” Iribe tells me. Dixon and Andreessen join the fairly limited group of outside VCs with ownership stake in Oculus VR, and Iribe says that the partners and funding were chosen specifically with the intent that they should help them get to through the initial V1 consumer launch without having to go find more money elsewhere.
“The point of the first raise was to build out the technology,” Iribe says, explaining what the money has been spent on so far. “We actually thought it would take us a bit longer to get to the point of where we’re at now.”
But it didn’t take that long. The new Oculus Rift prototype should be virtually identical in terms of experience to the version that ships to consumers.
Achievement Unlocked: Consumer-Caliber Experience
“We got to the point where the latest prototype of this technology really is beyond even what we expected for V1,” Iribe told me. “We kind of put the hammer down and said ‘Okay, this is it, this is definitely enough to totally blow away the world and deliver our consumer, V1 product.’ We’re looking back even now on the dev kit and going ‘oh gosh, this new one is so much better.’ It is literally an entirely different experience.’”
There’s a general feeling that it’s a true ‘Holy Grail’ experience in terms of immersive reality tech among those who’ve tried the latest prototype, Iribe says. I asked if I’d be able to see for myself at CES coming up in January, but he says they’re not ready to announce yet what they’re bringing to the show, and we’ll find out closer to the date. Not to read too much into it, but that does sound pretty promising for those hoping to get a sense of this new design in action. The latest hardware still isn’t close to final in terms of product design, however, Iribe adds:
“It’s what we want to bring as an experience,” he said. “It’s a prototype, so it still has its circuit boards and exposed wires and all that, but the experience, meaning once you put the device on, it is what we want to deliver in a consumer product. People go in, spend long periods of time in the experience and come out and say ‘I want to do more of that.’ There’s no kind of discomfort, no dizziness, no nausea. So many of the technical hurdles have been pretty much nailed.”
Vision In The Near-Term: Both Literal And Figurative
As for things they’re still working on the engineering side, Iribe says that there’s an increasing interest in building more advanced eye movement detection to the Rift’s functionality.
“[We recently hired] a lot of vision guys, that’s a big effort for us now,” he says. “We’re really focusing on the vision side, in terms of tracking and using optical tracking and camera tracking. That’s going to be a big focus for us going forward. Over time, we want to get more of the body in the game, but right now we’re trying to get your eyes in the game, combining your vision with your head tracking.”
Aside from engineering work, there’s a lot that needs to be nailed down in the immediate future. There’s figuring out how to consumerize the actual product design itself, and then ramping up the initial production run. That’s why Iribe isn’t putting a firm date on the Rift’s availability date just yet: internally, they have a pretty good idea of when to expect it to reach retailers and customers, but they’re purposely keeping tight-lipped about those projections to make sure everything’s ready when the time comes. To that end, they’re also hiring smart people aggressively in virtually every capacity, as there’s not just a hardware and software component to the Rift, but services, an ecosystem, a consumer education initiative and much, much more that all need to come together at launch.
Carmack Codes And Codes And Codes To Avoid A Deflating Launch
Hardware startups, especially those dealing with novel input paradigms or wearable computing, have been multiplying sharply in the past couple of years, and recently we’ve seen a number that were initially crowdfunded via pre-orders deliver their shipping consumer devices. The results aren’t pretty: while some like the Pebble have been fairly well-received (though not universally loved), others like the Leap Motion and the Ouya have sounded a sour note. Iribe admits that potential fate is a little daunting, but believes that Oculus is doing everything right to avoid the same kind of crash at the gate.
That likely explains why his dual roles at both Oculus and id didn’t last long, as he stepped down from the original home of Doom and Quake late last month to focus on being Oculus VR’s CTO full-time. Carmack is doing what he loves most at Oculus, according to Iribe, which is tackling a difficult problem that’s “right on the edge of reality.” Carmack pioneered both 2D and 3D gaming, and he’s doing the same thing all over again with the Oculus Rift, and it “really works,” Iribe says.
Acquisition Potential, Valuation And Launch Sales Estimates
Along with launch date and Carmack project specifics, Oculus is also keeping mum on valuation. Essentially, Iribe very loosely suggested a 20 to 40 percent equity sale at this stage for a startup like Oculus VR, which would put the valuation somewhere between $200 and $400 million or so, with the heavy caveat that this is mostly educated guessing on my part and not data sourced direct from the company.
“The valuation wasn’t so high that [our investors] were getting a tiny sliver, we had a pretty good valuation at each round [...] that was fair for everybody,” was the only thing Iribe would say for sure on the matter. “It’s good, but not too crazy.”
That valuation is high enough that any prospects of Oculus Rift getting scooped up by Microsoft, Sony or any other major incumbent gaming company is slim to none, Iribe says, at least until after they deliver their initial run of consumer devices. He also says that personally, the idea of having built what they have and not releasing it themselves just seems impossible.
“We feel like we have a pretty good idea of what we can sell through pre-orders, and through consumer launch, for the first six, eight or even twelve months,” Iribe explains regarding their budgeting and the amount raised, and why they don’t anticipate having to find more capital pre-launch. Extrapolating from comments he made to me, I’d suggest they’re looking somewhere in the neighborhood of one million devices for a production run funded by what’s in their existing coffers, though Iribe declined to get into specifics. He did say that they see that expanding to hundreds of millions of devices and active users sometime in the next decade or so, thanks to the long-term Oculus vision of VR beyond the confines of gaming.
Immersed In The Big Picture
What we’re looking at is the evolution of virtual reality, starting with this headset. It’s going to be a little bigger than we’d all want it to be of course, and it will have its form factor challenges, but the experience inside is good enough that people are going to really enjoy it, and love going in, playing games and watching movies. And then it’ll quickly evolve, and its form factor will keep getting better; closer and closer to sunglasses, lighter and easier to wear. Very quickly, over the next decade or two, what we’re looking at really becomes about communications.
Just like the smartphone now represents the primary means with which we communicate digitally, Iribe sees a future where VR supplants a lot of the same usage, so that you have a pair of sunglass-style Rift goggles that you simply slip on when you want to talk face-to-face, as if in person, with your friend halfway around the world. Our kids will laugh at stories of typing away on virtual keyboards and smiling back at grainy video into the unblinking eye of a monitor-mounted webcam, and remote business won’t be so remote anymore. In short, Oculus is taking the first step towards a world where the “virtual” in virtual reality is just a technical distinction, not a description of experience.
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Skitch for Mac adds resolution controls for Retina display captures
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Skype brings picture in picture video calls to Android tablets
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Social Media Analytics Company Viralheat Names Jeff Revoy As Its New CEO
Viralheat is announcing that it has a new CEO: Jeff Revoy, whose recent roles include serving as former Chief Marketing and Product Officer at email marketing company iContact.
A company spokesperson suggested that it was time for a new CEO because Viralheat is shifting its focus from small and medium businesses to larger enterprises: “Jeff has a lot of experience helping companies like iContact transition into the Enterprise space and will help take Viralheat through its next phase of growth.”
They added that the previous CEO, co-founder Raj Kadam, will be remain “100% active at the company,” working on sales and business development.
Revoy’s résumé includes multiple vice president roles at Yahoo, serving as chief revenue officer at ChooChee (which was, it seems, quietly acquired by T-Mobile, as we’d reported), and the aforementioned position at iContact (which was acquired by Vocus for $169 million).
Founded in 2009 and backed by mayfield Fund, Viralheat’s services include social media monitoring, analytics, publishing, sentiment analysis, and more, and it says it serves “thousands” of customers. In the press release announcing his hiring, Revoy praised Viralheat’s “easy-to-naviate monitoring and analytics tools that help large businesses succeed in a rapidly changing digital communications environment.”
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SlingPlayer app arrives for Windows 8, costs $15 after free trial runs out
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Microsoft Sets Dates for Build 2014 Developer Conference
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Google's Ingress to become a platform for other augmented reality games
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Lomography's Petzval lens ships to Kickstarter backers, pre-order it now for $599
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Google Maps Navigation for Android makes its way to 25 more countries
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BT has a surprise for new subscribers: adult content is blocked by default
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Ask a Dev: Should Every Website Have an App?
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Isis Mobile Wallet now supports Wells Fargo Visa credit cards
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Samsung promises 'differentiated' smartphones based on its camera expertise
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Recon's extreme sports gear will now stream your death-defying stats straight to Facebook
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Un Amiga 500 en Chrome
Ya se pueden revivir con un clic los viejas eras de la edad dorada de la informática gracias a Amiga 500 Emulator , que carga una versión del mítico microordenador «familiar» de Commodore con algunos extras. Tan solo hace falta visitarlo con el navegador (Google Chrome) y hacer un clic para traspasar el control al ratón rojo del Amiga.
Ver ese (C) 1987 Commodore-Amiga, Inc. durante el arranque pone los pelos de gallina, todo sea dicho… ¡35 años ya!
(Vía CNet.)
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ARM buys graphics company Geomerics to improve gaming on its mobile chips
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NSA overhaul could see an end to PRISM-style surveillance
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DirecTV pondering online video service that deliberately won't compete with Netflix
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El vuelo 666 de Finnair a HEL en un viernes 13, ideal para supersticiosos
El vuelo Finnair 666 une a diario Copenhague y Helsinki. Su hora de salida son las 13:15, hora central europea; la de llegada las 14:30.
El código IATA del aeropuerto de Helsinki es HEL.
Hell es infierno en inglés.
Para los supersticiosos debe ser fatal tener que volar en el vuelo 666 con destino a HEL en un viernes 13 como hoy.
Claro que también se podría volar de HVN a HEL. O al revés.
Y hablando de vuelos 666, también está el documental Flight 666 sobre la gira Somewhere Back In Time World Tour de Iron Maiden, en la que Bruce Dickinson, el cantante de la banda, pilotaba el Ed Force One, un Boeing 757 preparado en configuración combi para llevar a la banda y a su material de un lugar a otro.
- De París a Santiago de Compostela pasando por Santiago de Chile, un artículo que escribí sobre los códigos de los aeropuertos para el blog de Iberia.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/aerotrastorno/vuelo-666-finnair-hel.html
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