The Axxana Phoenix: Paranoia With Style.

Topic:

Photo: When the nukes come down, only cockroaches and the Axxana Black Box will survive.

Having a good back-up system is crucial to running any business that deals with a substantial amount of data. There are a lot of different methods of data back-up and retrieval, but all of them have some issues. You've either got to be able to get to the physical back-up drive to pull your information off, or install a system that backs everything up off-site every few hours.

Posted on Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:55:24 CDT | by Robert Evans

NASA Phoenix Mars Lander has run out of Power

Topic:

NASA reports that the Phoenix Mars Lander has stopped communicating as it has run out of power. As anticipated, seasonal decline in sunshine at the robot's arctic landing site is not providing enough sunlight for the solar arrays to collect the power necessary to charge batteries that operate the lander's instruments.

NASA will be listening carefully during the next few weeks to hear if Phoenix revives and phones home again. Read more

Posted on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:29:58 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Phoenix sees Ice vanish on Mars

Topic:

The NASA Mars mission apparently gets closer to proof that there is Ice on Mars.

Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.

"It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that." Read more

Posted on Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Phoenix is finally cooking Mars Soil

Topic:

As reported on the weekend NASA had troubles getting soil the Mars Lander Phoenix collected into its little oven to analyze it.

Through vibrating the filter the Mars soil samples moved inside the tiny oven. The Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer instrument, or TEGA, for Phoenix actually has eight separate tiny ovens to bake and sniff the soil to assess its volatile ingredients, such as water. Read more

Posted on Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

So what is Phoenix doing these Days on Mars?

Topic:

The last report we published about NASA's Mars Lander Phoenix is a week old. Back then the news was that it is standing on Ice.

The last update NASA released yesterday shows a less exciting situation. Phoenix scooped up some Mars dirt and tried to cook a bit of it to see what is in it. Read more

Posted on Sun, 8 Jun 2008 08:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Phoenix Mars Lander sitting directly on Ice?

Topic:

The Nasa Mars lander Phoenix is possibly sitting directly on an ice patch.
A photo of the ground underneath the Phoenix Mars Lander shows a harder substrate that may be ice exposed by the thrusters.

"This suggests we have an ice table under a thin layer of loose soil," said the lead scientist for the Robotic Arm Camera, Horst Uwe Keller of Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg- Lindau, Germany. Read more

Posted on Sun, 1 Jun 2008 16:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Phoenix Mars Lander sends Photo of Icy Grounds

Topic:

We reported earlier today about the first photos Phoenix sent from Mars. NASA has now published an approximate-color image that shows polygonal pattern in the ground near the Phoenix Lander that indicates icy grounds.

These polygonal pattern can also be found in the in the arctic regions of Earth. Read more

Posted on Mon, 26 May 2008 07:50:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Phoenix lands on Mars and sends first Photos

Topic:

NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed in the northern polar region of Mars successfully today.
Radio signals received at 4:53:44 p.m. Pacific Time (7:53:44 p.m. Eastern Time) confirmed the Phoenix Mars Lander had survived its difficult final descent and touchdown 15 minutes earlier. This time was predicted by NASA elier today. The signals took that long to travel from Mars to Earth at the speed of light. Read more

Posted on Sun, 25 May 2008 23:19:25 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

NASA Phoenix Mars Lander lands tonight

Topic:

The NASA Phoenix Mars Lander is on track to land on the red planet tonight at around 8pm EST.

Update:
Phoenix has landed and sent first photos from Mars

The NASA TV online video channel already starts the live coverage of the Phoenix landing at 6pm EST. Read more

Posted on Sun, 25 May 2008 12:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

The Oscar Goes to Tesla Roadster, Toyota Prius, Phoenix Roadster and ZAP Car

Topic:

This year many celebrities will arrive at the Oscars in ECO-Friendly cars. Tune in early today into the Oscar coverage to see the real stars of this year's Academy Award night.

The utra-cool Tesla Roadster electric sports car, a plug-in Prius that gets up to 100 mpg, the all electric Phoenix Roadster SUV, Compressed Natural Gas vehicles and the electric Zap Car will be starring tonight.

The awareness of climate change never was so high. The Academy Awards are a great venue to market innovative new cars that enable people to make a difference.
It would be nice if Tesla Cars would be made by Ford or GM and sell for $20,000 in numbers and not for $92,000.
Read more

Posted on Sun, 25 Feb 2007 10:00:00 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

DEMO 06 Underway in Phoenix

Topic:

The DEMO 06 conference is underway in Phoenix, AZ this week. DEMO is the premier launch pad for new startups and technologies.

We already reported about Ugobe that introduced a cool life like toy dino. Sharing photos and content via mobile phones is another topic that start-ups like Sharpcast and Vizrea are presenting.
Sharpcast Photos connects your entire photo collection from your desktop to your mobile phone and the web, so you can view and manage your collection from anywhere at any time without having to rely solely on a web browser. More details on the Sharpcast site.

Vizrea Snap helps users organize all their photos and share them on the Web, PC or their camera phones. It also automatically sends photos between a camera phone and a PC or Web site in an organized way. Vizrea Snap is being launched with support for Nokia Series 60 smart phones and can be downloaded directly from the Vizrea site.
Obviously those two companies are competing head on. I am also not quite sure how much those services add on benefits compared to the Nokia Lifeblog software that is available since a long time, especially if their service is also only supporting Nokia phones. Read more

Posted on Tue, 7 Feb 2006 02:56:07 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr