NASA Wants To Launch Tiny Moon Satellites on Its Next-Generation Rocket

NASA is keen on launching tiny moon satellites on its Next Generation Rocket and December 4th unscrewed the launch of the Orion spacecraft. The vehicle was proposed to bring the astronauts in the solar system in the next decade and NASA is thinking ahead to the next space test somewhere in 2017 or 2018.

The Cube Quest Competition which was sponsored by NASA’s Space Technology Mission directorate Centennial Challenge Program has been offering around $5million to those who meet the challenge objective of designing, building as well as delivering flight qualified small satellite which would be capable of advanced operations anywhere near and beyond the moon.

The team members of Cube Quest would have the opportunities of competing for a secondary payload spot on the first mission of NASA’s Orion spacecraft that would be launched atop the agency’s Space Launch System – SLS rocket.

There are three stages to the competition namely: Ground Tournaments, Deep Space Derby and Lunar Derby wherein all the teams could compete in any one of the Ground Tournaments. The team which rates high on mission safety as well as probability of success would be receiving incremental awards. The Ground Tournaments would be held every four to six months providing opportunities to earn a spot on the first integrated flight of SLS and Orion.

Innovative Solution to Deep Space Communication

Focus of Deep Space Derby would be on finding innovative solution to deep space communication with the use of small spacecraft while the Lunar Derby would be focusing mainly on propulsion for small spacecraft and near Earth communications.

With the combinations of these challenges, it is expected in making a contribution to the opening of deep space exploration to non-government spacecraft for the first time. Small spacecraft capabilities in advancements may not only provide benefits to the future missions but also make it possible for new mission scenarios and the Cube Quest Challenge seems to establish priority for all subsystems in need of performing deep space exploration with the use of small spacecraft.

If all goes well, riding atop of the new Space Launch System rocket, it will be a suite of CubeSats which will explore the Moon as Orion journeys out to our largest nearest celestial planet.CubeStats, tiny satellites are so small that they are within the reach of universities as well as other similar institutions which may desire to perform science in space without the help of cost on operating a huge mission.

NASA – CubeStats Challenge

The concept has been of great success resulting in some companies using it as a base for their entire business model like the Planet Labs which is a company that is performing Earth observation with the small machines.

The competition would be divided in several sections inclusive of ground tournament in order to see if the CubeSats could fly on the SLS, s lunar derby ensuring that they could communicate at a distance of about 10 times the Earth moon distance with a deep space derby to put the CubeStats in stable lunar orbit and function well there.

NASA states that `the Cube Quest Challenge seeks to develop and test subsystems necessary to perform deep space exploration using small spacecraft and advancements in small spacecraft capabilities will provide benefits to future mission and also enable entirely new mission scenarios including future investigations of near-Earth asteroids’.

EFF and Mozilla Join Forces- Encrypting the Entire Web and Giving Free HTTPS Certificates

The year 2015 will see HTTPS being finally enables in every part of the world, every person will be able to acquire free, and most of all officially approved SSL/TLS certificate for the enabling process. This new service which is also called Let’s Encrypt (a certificate authority (CA)), have been led by EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), the University of Michigan, and the Mozilla apart from their major joining partners Akamai and Cisco. This can be considered as one of major offering for the people who actually know the importance of HTTPS, TLS, and SSL. But, if you among you don’t have much knowledge about this, then just go by the word that this is a very big deal.

Importance of HTTPS: 

If you have noticed, every time you try and surf the net, the email url will show HTTPS or HTTP. It is not easy to explain the content and the process by which they work, but the simple difference is in the letter “S”, which primarily means secure. If your browser gives HTTP in the url, then be aware that it becomes easy for any hacker, Verizon or even the NSA to track down and observe as to what you might be doing. With an additional S, you get the security and confidence that you two people are aware about what you are doing; this includes you and your web browser.

TLS or SSL is used by a web browser to enable the HTTPS in your system, which provides a strong encryption. Usually this process of enabling is not hard for any website administrator, as they just need to generate an encryption key that takes less than a few seconds. The major obstacle comes in, when the key needs to be signed by the CA (certificate authority).

At the end it is the job of the certificate authorities to get all these things added up. Certificate authority mainly prevents random numbers of servers to be created by people, who claim to have websites, have their own certifying signature, and claim to be enacting like any big company. In simple, when you see a simple symbol depicting a lock, it clearly indicates that you are fairly visiting the secured website and not some hacking website in another country itself.

It is not easy to get certificates authorized as there are very few authorities around the world and they charge heavy on your pocket. Symantec, VeriSign and Comodo are major names in these authorities. If someone is not able to pay for these, they go by HTTP.

Let’s Encrypt (CA) 

Let’s Encrypt is expected to launch in 2015, which will be providing completely free and authorized certificates to anyone. The complete process is supposed to be completely automated. The service is expected to be free as the signing and renewal process is fully automated.

The corporate world can be expected to create a sense of resistance as using the Https in their system will now allow them to monitor anyone in the organization. As far open web is concerned, this services comes as the biggest boon ever.

Now Watch The Single Cells Moving Inside The Brain- MRI Sniper Scope

When it comes to a living brain, all that matter is the stimulation and recording of neurons. The main aspect of a brain is the presence and functioning of the neurons. The brain interface can be expected to be much better, if we are able to set more dialogs with the neurons. The truth basically lies in the presumption that the electric chattering between the neural cells (the ones which are in feral protists) are now covered in the cranial vault and undertake the full spectrum activities inside their writhing mass. Now researchers from Osaka, Japan have found the perfect way to see these cells in the brain and watch them in their actual elements and activities. They have developed a clear way to watch the activities of the brain and their functions.

Brain Sniper scope: 

The first and the vital requirement of the brain sniper scope is the need of tremendous power. Researchers were able to get this power from a top-of-the-line MRI, which basically generates rivet-popping 12 Tesla magnetic field. The main fact to know here is that the current upper bound of physiological safety is known to be 12T and is is also almost double in potential when compared to any implantable medical device manufacturer can ever acknowledge even exists or can be made. Differentiating between the cells is now easier with the single cell resolution that comes with a resolution that comes with a higher power. The main trick here lies in the tiny magnetically active particles also called as SPIOs as they provide super-paramagnetic nanoparticles of iron oxide.

The researchers started testing their ideas by insjecting the SPIOs into the blood stream of the mice and they were able to see that these particles got rapidly absorbed by the blood immune cells also known as macrophages. These immune cells can easily travel throughout the vasculature of the brain and depending on the movements of the cells; we can take look at their movements.

The researchers injected the LPS (lipopolysaccharides) to increase the natural macrophage curiosity. These LPS has been derived out of gram-negative bacteria. Under these situations, the immune cells undergo lots of craziness similar to the septic shocks these bacteria’s will go through. Through this method, the researchers were able to see the movement of the cells in and out of the brain vessels. At present if, we see almost all the neural transplant procedures are carried out with a hope of giving auxiliary nourishing function to the existing faulty neurons rather than acting as the primary neural cells.

We already know that science has developed so much that at present we have the exceptional ability to track down the immune cells. These cells invade the brain at the time of any inflammation or infection and this has already been found very useful. However, this discovery will be more useful in neural dysfunctions and movement disorders. By using SPIOs and other technique now, we will be able to see the flux of whole cell bodies axonal emissaries.

US DOJ States iPhone Encryption Could Lead to Child Death

Government worried with the new tougher and stricter encryption schemes which are being implemented by Apple in its iOS and Google in Android have the ability to prevent the law enforcers from getting their hands on the user’s data.

Snowden whistle blowing incident has accused major upheaval in the tech industry which has resulted in the plummeting of their trust rating. Now the tech companies are scrambling around to reinstate their image and business by using much aggressive and strong encryption for saving users privacy.

Tech Giants Moving Towards Advanced Encryption

Apple is first company to include the encryption by default in its recent iOS 8 version while Google is working towards bringing the encryption on all the devices with its Android 5.0. Past week the Facebook owned messaging service provider WhatsApp has flipped the switched and had enabled the much needed end-to-end encryption on its messaging platform. These encryptions are seen as the boon for the users and consumers as it will give much more privacy but it is also acting as a major tumbling block for the government.

Government Worries Grows With Widespread Use Of Encryption

The government officials are extremely worried regarding the rampant use of advanced encryption in the consumer products by the tech companies. Officials had asserted that these very same features which protect user’s privacy could end up in protecting the criminals. In earlier times the tech companies were extremely cooperative as well as complacent in providing the government with essential information which was taken as shock by the general mobile phone and network users. But the advanced encryption works through not storing the encryption keys on the Apple’s or Google’s servers, thereby the concerned authorities won’t be able to get their hands on it even if they possess the required warrant.

Apple Could Become A Reason For Child Death

The Wall Street Journal reports that a Department of Justice (DOJ) official had eventually told the Apple executives during a classified meeting that in near future their company could be directly responsible for the death of a child.

The logic behind stating such grave point is that government officials believes that one day criminals probably a kidnapper could rely on the Apple’s encrypted devices for hiding themselves from the law enforcement authorities. Such inability of law enforcement in accessing the data on that person’s phone could inevitably allow him to evade detection and kill a child as well.

Apple had rubbished such accusation and even calls it inflammatory as well as inaccurate. Apple further said that the government have much more better means in such cases like taking help of the cellular carriers which would pinpoint the location of the suspect in a faster and convenient manner.

This incident reflects that in the future with advent of strong and advanced encryption method government would be kept at bay from large chunk of information and at the same time the privacy of the users would become more stable. However government should take more advanced steps in strengthening its reach but not at the cost of citizen’s privacy.

Florida Trade Commission Shuts Down Two Tech-Support Scam Companies

A federal court had temporarily shut down two companies which were providing bogus ‘tech support’ for computer throughout the country. It is been believed that these companies had managed to dupe an estimated $120 million.

Both of the accused companies modus operandi were fuelled by the greed and lack of knowledge on the part of honest customers. These companies have sold consumers unneeded software by tricking them to believe that their computers are under imminent threat or suffering from grave security threats which needed quick and instant technical help.

FTC Building Strong Case Against Scamming Companies

Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection has stated that these companies operations were essentially based on the lack of technical knowledge by the honest consumers. They had resorted to malpractices like the use of deceptive sales pitches accompanied with high-pressure tactics to sell their useless software and services and wreak millions of dollars out of it.

This isn’t the first time that the FTC has shut down the company resorting to scam based operations or business tactics. Earlier it had also shut down another fraudster company which ran an alleged scam wherein the callers pretended to be tech support for the giant tech-companies like Facebook (FB) and Microsoft (MSFT).

How These Companies Worked? 

Consumers are required to download an unpaid version of the software which is supposed to improve their computer’s performance. That software simply runs a system scan and identifies all sorts of problems, errors and threats. Later on users are asked to get their computer repaired and errors fixed by buying that particular software for $29-$49. Once they had bought it, they would be gently directed to a call a phone number which supposedly activate the software. Even after buying the consumers are pounded with more sales pitch to buy more number of computer repair services for better reason.

These companies also used to take remote access of the computers and promised to solve the technical issues and remove the threats from the devices for a whopping charge of $500.

FTC Gears Up For A Decisive Fight

A federal court in Florida has already taken the initial steps of temporarily shutting down these companies and their partners. Even appointed receivers and froze their assets until the case could be heard. Furthermore court has also ordered the respective authorities to disable their websites and phones numbers.

The FTC lawsuits have alleged these companies of violating the federal consumer protection laws along with telemarketing sales rules and the Florida Deceptive & Unfair Trade Practices Act.

The defendants are California based PC Cleaner Inc, Netcom3 Global Inc., dba Netcom3 Software and Florida based telemarketing companies PC Vitalware LLC; Inbound Call Experts LLC, Super PC Support LLC and Advanced Tech Supportco.

The defendants in another suit are Massachusetts-based Boost Software Inc and Florida based telemarketer OMG Total Protection, Vast Tech Support LLC, dbs OMG Tech Help, OMG Back Up, OMG Tech Help LLC, Success Capital LLC, downloadsoftware.com and softwaresupport.com.