Tag: USA
First orbital collision – US and Russian satellites get a little too close
In the first reported orbital collision ever, a US and a Russian communications satellite have accidentally collided 780km above Siberia. A “massive cloud of debris” has been produced, and NASA is tracking the hundreds of bits resulting from the crash, in the hope that they won’t interfere with the ISS and the shuttle, which is due to launch later this month.
It’s comprehensively answered the question of “how much stuff can we stick up there without it hitting each other?”, as 6,000 satellites have been sent into orbit since the first in 1957. Only about half are still in use, with the others having become defunct over the years.
The satellites in question belong to Communications firm Iridium, based in Bethesda, Maryland, and Russia’s civilian space agency, Roscosmos. The former was launched in 1997 and only weighed 560kg, so probably came off rather worse in the collision than its one-tonne Russian rival from 1993.
Place your bets in the comments below as to when the second collision will occur. The closest wins a bit of charred satellite, dug out of the tundra of Siberia.
(via BBC)
Biggest data breach ever at Heartland Payment Systems – 100 million transactions at risk
Although we’ve seen some whoppers in the UK, you can always count on the Yanks to do things bigger and better. One payment processing company, the brilliantly-named “Heartland Payment Systems” processes transactions for a quarter of a million businesses in the USA and has found some monitoring software on its servers, sending data to an external machine.
“We found evidence of an intrusion last week and immediately notified federal law enforcement officials as well as the card brands. We understand that this incident may be the result of a widespread global cyber fraud operation, and we are cooperating closely with the United States Secret Service and Department of Justice.” said Heartland president Robert Baldwin
In the USA, unlike the UK, companies have to disclose when data breaches occur. It’ll be interesting to see if Europe implements a similar law, but the UK government is opposed to such a move.
(via Out-Law.com)
Related posts: WPA Wi-Fi security gets cracked | Security watchdog the ICO is currently looking at 277 “data breaches” in the UK
US Army want brains… Zombies to join NATO soon?
News just in from the “scary shit” department is that the American army are looking into developing a number of technologies that wouldn’t look out of place in Star Trek. Holograms, virtual people, and controlling peoples memories are all on the agenda.
Dell fills its PCs with Universal MP3s
In the US, mega-computer-manufacturer Dell has done a deal with record label Universal to offer MP3s on its new computers. For the paltry sum of US$25, about £15, you can get 50 MP3s from Universal pre-loaded onto your computer when you buy it. Other download platforms in the US would charge you about US$50 for the same quantity of songs…
Finally, iPhone US launch date announced: Friday 29th June
Those who haven’t been attending the iPhone pre-launch party (and why not? Don’t tell me you don’t care) may not be aware quite how many rumours have been surrounding the date that Apple’s first smartphone will launch in the US.
While Apple rumours are nothing unusual, iPhone hype has been so strong that it seems as if every day in June has had a believable reason attached for Apple dropping the iPhone into AT&T stores.
Admittedly, journalist’s cousins overhearing junior AT&T staff talking about a release date isn’t hugely confidence building, but it hasn’t stopped the stories being published.
Anyway, this is just a long-winded way of reiterating what the title of this article has already made perfectly clear: Apple has officially announced the day that the iPhone will be available to buy in the States.
Friday 29th June.
