NASA Explores Inflatable Spacecraft Technology

At NASA’s Langley Research Centre located in Hampton, engineers have been devising a way to land astronauts on Mars which according to them seems that a simple thing like a child’s toy design would help to solve the problem. The progress is on, in the development of an inflatable heat shield which looks like a super-sized version of a stacking of doughnuts which an infant normally plays with.

The engineers are of the belief that a lightweight, inflatable heat shield could help to slow the craft to enter a Martian atmosphere which is much thinner to the Earth’s atmosphere. Landing safely in a large spacecraft on the Red planet is one of the many challenges faced as they are keen on sending humans, deep into space later this century.

This designed inflatable heat shield will enable the spacecraft to reach high altitude southern plains of Mars as well as other areas which otherwise would not be accessible under the prevailing technology. According to the experts, the rockets cannot be used to land a large spacecraft on Mars as done on the moon. Moreover, parachutes too would be of no use for a large spacecraft to send humans to the planet Mars.

Rings Filled with Nitrogen/Covered with Thermal Blanket

The inflatable rings would be the most appropriate option which would be filled with nitrogen and then covered with thermal blanket and once deployed to land, the rings could sit atop the spacecraft which resembles to some extent like a giant mushroom.

According to the senior engineer at Langley for advanced entry, descent and landing systems, Neil Cheatwood, he states that they are trying not to use propulsion if not required and will make use of that atmosphere as much as possible since it would mean that they will not have to carry the fuel with them. NASA’s leaders accept that getting humans to and from Mars safely, as early as 2030 would be very challenging. The scientists’ agency also agree that they should design new in-space propulsion systems with advanced spacesuits, long term living habitats abroad spacecraft as well as communication systems for deep space.

Work in Progress and Ready for Operational Use - By2016

This experiments needs to be tested on how second generation inflatable spacecraft technology would perform on re-entry in the Earth’s atmosphere. The testing is important since NASA officials are of the belief that an inflatable heat shield could be helpful for the astronauts to land on Mars and return with larger loads of supplies from the International Space Station and the experiment is scheduled on the next Antares rocket in 2016.

This new technology would be needed to land the astronauts on Mars since the kind of spacecraft which land humans would be larger than that which had landed on the planet earlier. The present heat shield technology is too much on the larger side with regards to weight which means that it cannot land anything larger than the rover which had been sent previously. Since the Viking program in the 1970s, NASA had relied on parachute based deceleration on Mars.

Work on the inflatable technology by the engineers at Langley has been going on for about a decade and is probably close to being ready for operational use.

Giant DDoS Kicks Of North Korea Off The Internet

North Korea was unceremoniously knocked off the internet by DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack. This attack has come into limelight soon after the “proportional response” to the Sony Pictures hack promised by the government of the United States of America. According to the rumors, the attack was supposedly carried out by North Korea and this is what even the FBI believes. On one side if this attack was carried out by the US government, it will become too obvious, so it is safe to believe that this attack would have been carried out by some disgruntled hack-activists such as Lizard Squad or Anonymous. At present, internet has been restored in North Korea but the outage lasted for about 9 hours and 31 minutes.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS): 

While there might be some people who are not aware about DDoS, but is no longer unusual for a service to get knocked off by the same. In the last couple of months, both PlayStation Network and Xbox Live have encountered outage issues. But it is quite surprising for an entire country to get knocked off like this. But all this makes sense given to the poor internet connectivity in North Korea.

As far as North Korea is concerned, the state owns the newspapers and TV stations making sure that there is no freedom of information. This clearly indicates the presence of dictatorship and absence of any dealings with democracy. The country has a very tight control over the flow of information.

History has proven that country is easily controllable when all the information/knowledge/dogma generates from a single known point. When it comes to regime of the country, even though internet has all possible required knowledge for humans, it still does not jibe well with the country. Most of the citizens of the country only use intranet and internet is left for higher ups. The country does not depend much on internet but whatever is available is provided by telecommunications giant China Unicom.

Quite frankly, it is very easy to DDoS North Korea. They have a single cable, which connects to the rest of internet. For DDoS a single, low-bandwidth link is trivial but as most of the people in North Korea do not have access to internet, DDoS was not able to achieve what it was meant for.

There are enough speculations doing around about the people or the organization behind the attack. Lizard Squad, seems to have taken the responsibility for the attack on North Korea as they have tweeted, both Xbox Live & other targets have a lot of capacity. They had previously DDoSed the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live services.

The company’s Twitter account has been suspended. Anonymous also has a history of DDoSes but they have openly condemned the whole Sony Pictures/North Korea/The Interview debacle. While we can remember the cyber attack on Sony and the retaliation, which was promised by the US government, such DDoS on North Korea doesn’t make any sense from their side as it hardly makes any impact. While on one side a small period of DDoS will not have any major impact but if it continues for a few weeks or month, it can create serious problems for the country.

Ford Auctions First 2015 Shelby GT350 Mustang, Proceeds Will Go to JDRF

1st model of Shelby GT 350 of Ford Mustang to be auctioned for charity 

The year 2014 has been an extraordinary year for the Ford, which is one of the most popular car manufacturing companies. The year has been accompanied by magnanimous car sales followed by accolades of glories for producing several prestigious premium class cars. The ultimate milestone of success has been laid by the company at the moment of 2014’s conclusion by stating to the media that the 1st model of Ford GT 350 Mustang of 2015 would be raised for an auction and the finances that will be collected in this process would be provided to a charity for their welfare.

Reason for selection of this particular model and the start of auction

Out of many prestigious models that have rolled out of the company so far, Ford Mustang has been chosen as a hot performance car by popular vote of the owner populace. However, a slight modification has been introduced in the previous model, and the new model is predicted to be a complete enthralling one. With an improved performance, Ford GT 350 Mustang has been anticipated to take over the market like wildfire. The car has been improvised with the latest suspension technology, and new engine has been introduced with improved brakes performance. Crafted with the skills of finest technicians, this model will raise the pride and prestige of the company to a complete new echelon of glory and innovation.

Unveiling of the model at the Los Angeles Auto Show have also revealed about the car’s special features. It has been incorporated with a 5.2 liter V8 tank that produces 500HP. The availability of such a high muscled car at an optimum price would ensure its domination over the automobile market in the recent future.

The first model would roll out from lot 3008 and would be raised for an auction on January 17th 2015 at Barrett Jackson Scottsdale Auction, and the money which would be raised in this process would be going for the welfare of Juvenile diabetes research.

Proceedings of the auction and the future collaboration

Over the few decades there exists mutual collaboration between Ford and Barrett Jackson Auction, which has significantly progressed over the time, owing to the huge profit both of these billionaire firms achieved from raising several priceless cars for auction.

There has been some expectancy that the bond will further strengthen with the rolling of the 1st model of Ford Mustang GT 350 for auction. The CEO of Barrett Jackson Auction, Craig Jackson has decided not to fix any initial price for the car, since it’s expected to raise an enviable sum of money owing to Ford’s stature. Ford has provided the flexibility of allowing their winner to choose color and package of GT 350 according to their free will.

Ford has been one promising company that has delivered excellent service for over decades, and it will continue to provide so. The first model of GT 350 rolled out of the company was in 1960, which made a significant milestone in steps of success of Ford. The latest model, all equipped with powerful brakes and suspension will surely make an impressive strike in the forthcoming automobile market.

Muscle Cars: Back with a Bang!

In today's world, speed is what people love the most. Technology is being developed to make this faster and at the same time maintain the efficiency. But there have been speed lovers in all ages. Even in the past, there were many people who were crazy about anything that worked at high speed. Thus the concept of racing came into the picture. Car racing is one very crucial field in racing.

What are muscle cars? 

People have always tried to enhance the technology to develop faster cars. One of the high-performance cars is called Muscle cars. As the name suggests, these cars are high speed cars with a very advanced engine fitted to it, the body of the car is not too big but the 2-door sports car generates very high speed. Its origin is in America. It is meant for use in street as well for occasional racing. It is not only being manufactured and developed in America but also in United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa. Its popularity and demand is growing across the globe.

Popularity of the car

The popularity of the muscle car had gone down but the great news is that it is back and with a bang. Tim Kunikis' creation is one worth watching and all those who believe in sensible driving should compulsorily experience a drive in his vehicle.

The car industry mainly utilises small cars and replaces their engines with a huge displacement engine. These cars have been designed to generate straight-line speed. It does not have the sophistication of high-performance European cars. Muscle cars have attracted youngsters to the showrooms. It has been seen that they tend to buy more of mid-size cars than the big ones.

Over the years there have been further improvements on the functioning of these muscle cars. The factors involving reduction of pollutions have also been incorporated to conserve the health of the environment.

These muscle cars are bringing up a lot of interest among the cars lovers and especially the ones who can concentrate on the rawness of the car instead of complaining about the sophistication. The thrill of these cars is very different. And only car lovers understand that the most. With the improvements on the rawness of the car, a good number of people are taking interest in the car.

Revival of the cars

The revival of these cars is owed to the blend of the old and new cars. The cars which are being manufactured now have the strong body lines and the powerful looking front portions of the predecessors.These muscle cars are bringing up a lot of interest among the cars lovers and especially the ones who can concentrate on the rawness of the car instead of complaining about the sophistication. The thrill of these cars is very different.

And only car lovers understand that the most. With the improvements on the rawness of the car, the number of people taking interest in the car is increasing. Thus there is a greater increase in the popularity of the cars after it has been recently revived.

Microsoft Reveals Shocking Windows Phone Usage Statistics

Windows phone has been in circulation for quite some time but it didn’t get as much popularity as the Android based smartphones. But the monthly mobile usage statistics uncovered by the Washington based research company namely Redmond points out some amazing trends and truths of widows phone. It has been widely known that Microsoft had so far concentrated on building high-end devices for the consumers which still finds itself lagging behind Android based phones due to variety of reasons. Windows phones mainly suffered from low RAM, not so friendly user interface and expensive pricing but usage statistics reveals never known brighter sides.

Higher Percentage of Apps Downloads

Microsoft had stated that about 71% of the downloaded apps were initialized from its low memory Lumia devices in the recent past. The most popular Lumia phone does so is the Nokia Lumia 520 which offers just 512 of RAM to the consumers.

Even the Redmond statistics claims that judging on the basis of the top ten popular devices which tends to download apps aggressively has a surprising seven different models of Windows phone in the kitty. Further these different models have low memory and RAM issues as well. On the basis of this remarkable fact Microsoft had decided to take constructive efforts to build apps which fulfil the requirement within this particular range of popular Windows phones.

Microsoft Soon To Bring More Apps For Lumia Devices

Microsoft has stated taking the initial steps for generating more user friendly apps for its phones. It has made some agreements with the Windows based app developers to build distinct apps in order to grab the potential apps market with authority. It has taken decision to enlarge its circle of active apps zone within the low on memory devices. In the recent times apps market has become a major revenue generators for Apple with its App Store and Google with its Play Store. Microsoft also provides its users with a Windows Phone Store which allows the users to download apps which are applicable for its OS.

Microsoft To Enhance Its Game Apps

Alongside the mobile apps Microsoft is also working towards developing more games which can run efficiently on the low memory devices. It has been that the high end devices lags behind the entry or budget level phones in terms of generating the more number of games downloads. It is logical that the Microsoft is aiming at proving better game apps for its devices to move forward its users to the high-end games as well get better sales volume with low-end games.

Microsoft Is Concerned About Popularity Not The Revenue

Contrary to the perception Microsoft is strengthening its apps zone not for the ‘aggressive revenue’ but for making its devices much more popular among the consumers and others alike. But the pricing of the in-app purchase shows a different outlook. Most of the in-app purchases includes a decent price tags of $4.99, $9.99 and $19.99 which couldn’t be justified as low price at all. However regardless of high price point it is Windows users who are going to benefit from wide range of low-end apps which could run like charm on their low ram devices.