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Today's Topics:
1. Apple, Cisco extend negotiations on iPhone name (Rob)
2. NASA'S THEMIS Mission Launches to Study Geomagnetic Substorms
(Dishnut)
3. WWII vet helped launch 1st civilian satellite (Dishnut)
4. Driver?s License Emerges as Crime-Fighting Tool (George Antunes)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 00:37:46 -0600
From: Rob <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Apple, Cisco extend negotiations on iPhone name
To: Media-News <medianews@twiar.org>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Apple, Cisco extend negotiations on iPhone name
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070216/tc_nm/apple_cisco_iphone_dc_3
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Network equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc. said it
agreed to give Apple Inc. more time to respond to the lawsuit it filed
over the "iPhone" trademark, extending negotiations until February 21.
Cisco, who made the announcement late on Thursday, sued Apple for
trademark infringement in January after Apple unveiled its long-awaited
multimedia phone called the iPhone, a name claimed by the network
equipment maker.
"Cisco has agreed to give Apple an extension until Wednesday, February
21," Cisco said in a statement. "Cisco is fully committed to using the
extra time to reach a mutually beneficial resolution."
Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 after acquiring a company
called Infogear, which had previously owned the trademark and had sold
devices called iPhones for several years.
Linksys, a division of Cisco, has been selling wireless products with
the iPhone name since early last year, with new products added to the
line in December.
It was the second agreement to an extension after a similar move on
January 31.
While Cisco has said it wants to keep Apple from "infringing upon and
deliberately copying and using" the trademark, it has also called for
"interoperability," suggesting it was seeking more than a one-off
payment for use of the name.
Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris confirmed the extension, saying the
discussions were aimed at reaching an agreement on trademark rights and
interoperability.
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 04:15:34 -0800
From: Dishnut <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] NASA'S THEMIS Mission Launches to Study
Geomagnetic Substorms
To: Medianews <medianews@twiar.org>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Feb. 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's THEMIS
mission successfully launched Saturday, Feb. 17, at 6:01 p.m. EST from
Pad 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
THEMIS stands for the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions
during Substorms. It is NASA's first five-satellite mission launched
aboard a single rocket. The spacecraft separated from the launch vehicle
approximately 73 minutes after liftoff. By 8:07 p.m. EST, mission
operators at the University of California, Berkeley, commanded and
received signals from all five spacecraft, confirming nominal separation
status.
The mission will help resolve the mystery of what triggers geomagnetic
substorms. Substorms are atmospheric events visible in the Northern
Hemisphere as a sudden brightening of the Northern Lights, or aurora
borealis. The findings from the mission may help protect commercial
satellites and humans in space from the adverse effects of particle
radiation.
THEMIS' satellite constellation will line up along the sun-Earth line,
collect coordinated measurements, and observe substorms during the
two-year mission. Data collected from the five identical probes will
help pinpoint where and when substorms begin, a feat impossible with any
previous single- satellite mission.
"The THEMIS mission will make a breakthrough in our understanding of how
Earth's magnetosphere stores and releases energy from the sun and also
will demonstrate the tremendous potential that constellation missions
have for space exploration," said Vassilis Angelopoulos, THEMIS
principal investigator at the University of California, Berkeley.
"THEMIS' unique alignments also will answer how the sun-Earth
interaction is affected by Earth's bow shock, and how 'killer electrons'
at Earth's radiation belts are accelerated."
The Mission Operations Center at the University of California, Berkeley,
will monitor the health and status of the five satellites. Instrument
scientists will turn on and characterize the instruments during the next
30 days. The center will then assign each spacecraft a target orbit
within the THEMIS constellation based on its performance. Mission
operators will direct the spacecraft to their final orbits in mid-September.
During the mission the five THEMIS satellites will observe an estimated
30 substorms in process. At the same time, 20 ground observatories in
Alaska and Canada will time the aurora and space currents. The relative
timing between the five spacecraft and ground observations underneath
them will help scientists determine the elusive substorm trigger mechanism.
"I am proud to manage the fifth medium class mission of the Explorer
Program," said Willis S. Jenkins, the THEMIS program executive. "As we
seek the answer to a compelling scientific question in geospace physics,
we are keeping up the tradition that began with Explorer I."
NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center was
responsible for the launch of THEMIS aboard a Delta II rocket. The
United Launch Alliance, Denver, provided launch service.
For additional information about THEMIS, news media should contact
Cynthia O'Carroll, Goddard Space Flight Center, Md., at 301-286-4647 or
Robert Sanders, University of California, Berkeley, at 510-643-6998.
The Explorer Program Office at Goddard manages the NASA-funded THEMIS
mission. The Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California,
Berkeley, is responsible for project management, space and ground-based
instruments, mission integration, mission operations and science. Swales
Aerospace, Beltsville, Md., built the THEMIS probes. THEMIS is an
international project conducted in partnership with Germany, France,
Austria and Canada.
For more information about the THEMIS mission and imagery on the Web, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/themis
--
Dishnut-P
====================================================================
Operator of RadioFree Dishnuts - Producer of The Dishnut News
heard Saturdays at 10pm EST. on
RFD, W0KIE Satellite Radio Network G-26 (T6) Transponder 1 / 6.2 & 6.8Mhz
(4DTV T6-999) WTND-LP 106.3, and many micro LPFM stations.
http://dishnuts.net
RFD Listen Links: http://dishnuts.net/#Listen
Show Archives: (Partly Up) http://dishnuts.net/archive/
**In Loving Memory of Mom (Dishnut Gerry)**
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 04:36:24 -0800
From: Dishnut <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] WWII vet helped launch 1st civilian satellite
To: Medianews <medianews@twiar.org>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/news/117179376861630.xml&coll=1
WWII vet helped launch 1st civilian satellite
Sunday, February 18, 2007
By YVONNE BETOWT
Times Staff Writer [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dick Esneault part of team behind OSCAR in 1961
Richard "Dick" Esneault never had a day of basic training, never fired a
shot in a war and never finished college.
But the electronics whiz of the 1940s was a highly-sought-after
noncombat soldier during World War II. He also became a successful
Huntsville business owner during the height of the 1960s boom.
Esneault was 81 when he died Feb. 4 at Tut Fann Veterans Home after a
long struggle with Alzheimer's. He is survived by his wife of 58 years,
Marie, four sons - Rick, Jim, Bob and John - and eight grandchildren.
"I think the fact he didn't have a college degree is really what drove
him to succeed," said Rick, the oldest son.
The family moved to Huntsville in 1963, and Esneault bought the old
Redstone Motel in south Huntsville. After it burned down, he started BJR
Manufacturing Reps and later Esneault Construction.
Outside his family, Esneault's biggest accomplishment was his role in
helping develop and launch the first civilian satellite, OSCAR (Orbiting
Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio), made by a group of ham-radio operators.
The 10-pound, three-watt radio transmitter was launched Dec. 12, 1961,
from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, riding on the back of an
Atlas-Agena booster carrying a military reconnaissance satellite. Its
Morse code message, "Hi," was received by more than 570 radio amateur
tracking stations in 28 countries.
The homemade satellite, built primarily from donated parts at an
out-of-pocket cost of $63, beat the multimillion-dollar satellite
Telstar to space by seven months. It captured the attention of broadcast
legend Edward R. Murrow, who told then-President John Kennedy about it.
Esneault's widow said Kennedy said of OSCAR: "This is exactly what we're
looking for ... a peaceful use of space."
In a Dec. 12, 1986, article in The Times, Esneault said Kennedy was
responsible for giving OSCAR the go-ahead to ride aboard a military mission.
Esneault's interest in radio, and later electronics, started when he was
a boy in New Orleans. While riding a street car, he saw another boy
listening to a home-made crystal radio inside an oatmeal box. It
fascinated Esneault, who peppered the boy with questions until he told
him how he made it. Esneault quickly built his own radio and "got the
bug," son Rick said.
Esneault became an avid ham-radio operator and received his license at
age 13. While in high school, he took night lessons to learn Morse code
so he could be certified by the Federal Communications Commission. His
instructor was so impressed with his aptitude, he offered the teenager a
job with Pan American World Airways.
He finished high school a year early to join Pan Am as a subcontractor
for the U.S. government with the Naval Air Corps. After about three
months, Esneault was told to sign up with the Navy in case he was shot
down. If shot down and captured and not registered in the military, he
could be considered a spy and be shot on sight.
Esneault, considered one of the best radio operators in the military,
even had one colonel demanding that he be assigned to his base.
While assigned to Miami, Esneault met Marie, a New York native, on the
beach. She didn't like her blind date and was smitten by the young man
from New Orleans.
While she was devoted to her husband and worked in the family business,
Marie acknowledged that Esneault could be "difficult to live with" at times.
Rick agreed, calling his father a "strict disciplinarian" who made all
four sons work a bubble-gum machine route to pay their way to college.
Bob, who works in the family business, said he got the basics of running
a business at college but said when it came to a working knowledge, "all
you had to do was watch my dad to learn."
The family moved from Miami to Spokane, Wash., then to California, where
Esneault worked for Philco, then one of the leading manufacturers of
electronics. That's when he worked on the OSCAR project. Later the
family moved to Massachusetts, then Georgia and finally Huntsville.
Even though he played a vital role in the war efforts, Esneault wasn't
considered a veteran until 1995, when he finally received a letter
acknowledging his time of service and a box of medals.
"He was very proud of them," Rick said.
--
Dishnut-P
====================================================================
Operator of RadioFree Dishnuts - Producer of The Dishnut News
heard Saturdays at 10pm EST. on
RFD, W0KIE Satellite Radio Network G-26 (T6) Transponder 1 / 6.2 & 6.8Mhz
(4DTV T6-999) WTND-LP 106.3, and many micro LPFM stations.
http://dishnuts.net
RFD Listen Links: http://dishnuts.net/#Listen
Show Archives: (Partly Up) http://dishnuts.net/archive/
**In Loving Memory of Mom (Dishnut Gerry)**
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 12:23:26 -0600
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Driver?s License Emerges as Crime-Fighting Tool
To: medianews@twiar.org
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed
February 17, 2007
Driver?s License Emerges as Crime-Fighting Tool, but Privacy Advocates Worry
By ADAM LIPTAK
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/17/us/17face.html?ei=5090&en=8782b7320b2e7a40&ex=1329368400&pagewanted=print
BOSTON, Feb. 12 ? On the second floor of a state office building here,
upstairs from a food court, three facial-recognition specialists are
revolutionizing American law enforcement. They work for the Massachusetts
motor vehicles department.
Last year they tried an experiment, for sport. Using computerized biometric
technology, they ran a mug shot from the Web site of ?America?s Most
Wanted,? the Fox Network television show, against the state?s database of
nine million digital driver?s license photographs.
The computer found a match. A man who looked very much like Robert Howell,
the fugitive in the mug shot, had a Massachusetts driver?s license under
another name. Mr. Howell was wanted in Massachusetts on rape charges.
The analysts passed that tip along to the police, who tracked him down to
New York City, where he was receiving welfare benefits under the alias on
the driver?s license. Mr. Howell was arrested in October.
At least six other states have or are working on similar enormous databases
of driver?s license photographs. Coupled with increasingly accurate
facial-recognition technology, the databases may become a radical
innovation in law enforcement.
Other biometric databases are more useful for now. But DNA and fingerprint
information, for instance, are not routinely collected from the general
public. Most adults, on the other hand, have a driver?s license with a
picture on it, meaning that the relevant databases for facial-recognition
analysis already exist. And while the current technology requires
good-quality photographs, the day may not be far off when images from
ordinary surveillance cameras will routinely help solve crimes.
Critics say the databases may therefore also represent a profound threat to
privacy.
?What is the D.M.V.?? asked Lee Tien, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier
Foundation and a privacy advocate. ?Does it license motor vehicles and
drivers? Or is it really an identification arm of law enforcement??
Anne L. Collins, the Massachusetts registrar of motor vehicles, said that
people seeking a driver?s license at least implicitly consent to allowing
their images to be used for other purposes.
?One of the things a driver?s license has become,? Ms. Collins said, ?is
evidence that you are who you say you are.?
The databases are primarily intended to prevent people from obtaining
multiple licenses under different names. That can help prevent identity
theft and stop people who try to get a second license after their first has
been suspended.
?The states are finding hundreds of cases of fraud each year in each
state,? said J. Scott Carr, executive vice president of the Digimarc
Corporation, which says it has sold biometric technology to motor vehicle
departments in seven states and has a role in the production of more than
two-thirds of all driver?s licenses in the United States.
But the databases can also be used for law enforcement purposes beyond
detecting fraud.
A page concerning Mr. Howell, printed out from the ?America?s Most Wanted?
Web site, is taped to the wall of the investigators? office here. It is a
kind of trophy.
?It?s always exciting when you get a hit and you?re getting someone really
bad off the streets,? said Maria Conlon, a facial-recognition specialist at
the Registry of Motor Vehicles. ?That?s when everyone?s morale goes up.?
Most of the work is less glamorous. The analysts? main job is to check
roughly 5,000 new driver?s license photographs every day against the
database. A computer algorithm that takes into account about 8,000 facial
data points does a rough cut, and analysts examine potential matches,
rejecting the vast majority.
That computers alone cannot do the job does not surprise Richard M. Smith,
an expert in digital security. ?It?s probably one of the more inaccurate
biometrics,? Mr. Smith said, referring to facial-recognition technologies.
After computers narrow the field of potential matches, Ms. Conlon and her
colleagues get to work.
?We don?t look at hair,? Ms. Conlon said. ?We do look at lips, noses, ears.?
Scars and tattoos can be useful, but what seem to be birthmarks are often
passing blemishes. Some people make it easy by wearing the same clothes,
though they are seeking licenses under different names. They have, Ms.
Conlon said, ?a registry outfit.?
The program, in place since April, has yielded more than 1,000 apparent
fraud cases referred to the state police. Other potential matches
identified by the computers and confirmed by analysts have turned out to be
clerical errors where, for instance, the wrong information was attached to
a person?s photograph. In the six months ending in January, analysts found
157 twins among the images flagged as potential matches.
The database?s second function, as a resource for law enforcement agencies,
is growing in popularity. Police chiefs from around the state e-mail
digital photographs for comparison with the database, sometimes several
times a day.
And other uses are not hard to imagine. Coroners have on three occasions
sent over photographs of dead people they could not identify. The analysts
struck out, perhaps because of the quality of the images.
?To make it work at all,? Mr. Smith said, ?you have to have good control of
camera angle and lighting.? Passport and driver?s license photographs,
along with mug shots, are ideal.
Other sorts of images are not useful ? yet. ?A video surveillance camera is
probably not going to give it to you,? Mr. Smith said.
In time, though, the combination of facial recognition and other
information ? from financial records, mobile phones, automobile positioning
devices and other sources ? may do away with the ability to move
anonymously through the world, Mr. Tien, the privacy advocate, said.
?The real question with biometrics,? he said, ?is that they are part of a
cluster of technologies that will allow for location tracking in both
public and private places.?
The case against Mr. Howell fizzled last week. He had been charged with
invading a home at gunpoint in Dorchester in August 2002 and holding three
people captive for hours, repeatedly raping one of them. He fled after
being released on bail, said Jake Wark, a spokesman for the district
attorney?s office, leading to his inclusion on the television show?s
most-wanted list.
But after Mr. Howell was caught through his license photo, the prosecutors
re-examined their case. In the intervening years, the victims disappeared,
and prosecutors think they may have left the country. Without their
testimony, prosecutors concluded, there was no way to take the case to
trial. Prosecutors formally abandoned the case on Friday, and they let Mr.
Howell go.
?He is in the wind right now,? Mr. Wark said.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
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