Take my taxi to the moon

Susmita Mohanty, the founder of India’s first private space company, Earth2Orbit, wants India to claim bigger piece of the space-launch pie

How active is India's space programme?
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), which was founded in 1969, launches rockets, builds and uses satellites extensively for earthly applications and has recently started planetary exploration. It tested its first astronaut capsule for atmospheric re-entry in 2007, and is planning to build a residential astronaut training facility. ISRO is also planning a lunar lander mission for 2014 and will launch a mission to Mars this year.

How does your company, Earth2Orbit, fit in with this programme?
We want to commercialise India's space capabilities, in particular the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. It is one of the world's most reliable in its class. I want to make it the rocket of choice for international satellite-makers looking to get to low Earth or sun-synchronous orbits. India could build and launch up to six each year, but currently launches only two. We need to step up to full throttle. The same goes for satellites and ground equipment. Over the next decade or two, I think India should be aiming for at least a quarter of the multibillion-dollar global space market, if not more.

What do you think of the way spacecraft for carrying humans are currently designed?
The way the world aerospace industry is set up, it is closely linked to the defence sector – they share the technology, the tooling and the cumbersome contractual processes. Unlike commercial automobile or consumer-product companies, where the end user is the primary design driver, aerospace companies tend to please government customers. As a result, we often end up with over-engineered, under-designed crew craft with an exorbitant price tag.

How can we improve on these designs?
I want us to push the boundaries of technology and design and build intelligent spaceships – spaceships that think. Imagine if an international consortium of companies such as Apple, Samsung, Pininfarina, Space X and MIT Media Lab got together to design and build a spaceship! What would it look like? Could it think? Could it self-repair or self-clean? Would it challenge the crew?

The private sector is changing how we get into space. How has the X Prize contributed?
It created a tectonic shift in mindsets and showed how we can accelerate innovation in space exploration without having to spend taxpayer money. The first X Prize led to the first privately funded and designed spaceplane built by Burt Rutan. Then Richard Branson seized the opportunity: if all goes well, Virgin Galactic could fly more people to space in a year than the Russians or Americans have over the past 50 years!

What is next for space travel?
It barely takes 10 minutes to reach low Earth orbit. It probably takes longer for most urbanites to commute to work. I want to be able to "cab it" to low Earth orbit. I am dreaming of private astronaut taxis. The first generation will take paying passengers into orbit. The second generation will ferry us to the moon and Mars.

This article appeared in print under the headline "One minute with... Susmita Mohanty"

Profile

Susmita Mohanty is CEO of Earth2Orbit, which recently launched its first client satellite. She has worked at NASA and Boeing, and holds a PhD in aerospace architecture

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4 ex-SMRT bus drivers involved in illegal strike plead guilty

 

SINGAPORE: Four former SMRT bus drivers pleaded guilty in court on Monday and were convicted for inciting and participating in last November's illegal bus strike.

He Jun Ling, 32, Gao Yue Qiang, 32, Liu Xiangying, 33, and Wang Xian Jie, 39, had earlier claimed trial with trial dates set for the 4 to 8 March.

But last Friday, the four men's lawyers said their clients' decision to plead came after prosecution gave an indication of the various sentencing options.

On 26 November 2012, 171 SMRT bus drivers failed to report for duty in a protest over pay and living conditions.

Eighty-eight of them stayed away from work the next day.

In December 2012, a SMRT bus driver, Bao Feng Shan, 38, also from China, was sentenced to six weeks' jail for taking part in the same illegal strike.

- CNA/ck

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New Nokia lineup spans range of budgets, features

The Nokia Lumia 520, in various colors.

(Credit:
Nokia)

Nokia took the wraps off four cell phones today at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, Spain, that run the gamut of entry level handsets to high-end Windows 8 devices.

With the entry-level Nokia 105, the Finish handset maker is thinking small. The durable 105 features a an itty-bitty 1.5-inch screen and a 15 euro price tag. Created for cell phone markets in China, Indonesia, India, and Nigeria, the Nokia 105 focuses on calls, long battery life, and only a few little extras.

There's no camera, no volume rocker, and the only buttons on this handset are on the central, rubbery alphanumeric dialpad. Since the screen requires such little power, the 800mAh battery lasts for more than 12.5 hours on talk time, Nokia says, and will power through 35 days on standby without a charge.

Nokia is targeting the younger crowd with the 301, a candy bar shape cell phone with a central select button and a camera feature that vocally guides users on how fit their face in the self-portrait frame. The handset sports a 2.4-inch QVGA display (320X240 pixel resolution) and a 3.2-megapixel camera (no flash) includes panorama and burst modes, which allows up to five shots in a sequence.

Nokia promises that battery life is long-lasting: a single-SIM 301 gives up to 20 hours of talk time, Nokia says, and up to 39 days of standby time. The 301 will go on sale in the second quarter for 65 euros, or about $85, in white, black, cyan, bright yellow, and magenta.

The Nokia Lumia 520 features a pronounced rounded back helps it fit comfortably into the contours of the palm and snappable covers that are exchangeable in different colors. The 520 sports a 4-inch LCD IPS supersensitivity screen 5-megapixel camera can record 720p HD video.

It sports a 1,430mAh battery, the 8GB mass storage, and support for 64GB in expandable memory. It'll be available in the U.S. through T-Mobile around late spring or early summer.

At the high end of Nokia's new lineup, the Windows 8 Nokia Lumia 720 has a 4.3-inch LCD display with the ClearBlack filter that reduces outdoor glare. Aimed at younger, trendier, social people, the 720 supports wireless charging and has a 6.7-megapixel camera with an f/9 aperture intended to capture low-light conditions (like nightlife) and LED flash.

There's also a 1.3-megapixel camera that supports Skype HD and has a wide-angle lens for fitting more faces into self-portraits. The unibody design features a microSD card slot, allowing storage expansion up to 64GB. Intended for markets in Asia and Europe in spots, the 720 will go on sale in the second quarter for 249 euros at full retail price, or about $338.

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Picture Archive: Dorothy Lamour and Jiggs, Circa 1938

Dorothy Lamour, most famous for her Road to ... series of movies with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, never won an Oscar. In her 50-plus-year career as an actress, she never even got nominated.

Neither did Jiggs the chimpanzee, pictured here with Lamour on the set of Her Jungle Love in a photo published in the 1938 National Geographic story "Monkey Folk."

No animal has ever been nominated for an Oscar. According to Academy Award rules, only actors and actresses are eligible.

Uggie, the Jack Russell terrier from last year's best picture winner, The Artist, didn't rate a nod. The equines that portrayed Seabiscuit and War Horse, movies that were best picture contenders in their respective years, were also snubbed.

Even the seven piglets that played Babe, the eponymous star of the best picture nominee in 1998, didn't rate. And the outlook seems to be worsening for the animal kingdom's odds of ever getting its paws on that golden statuette.

This year, two movies nominated in the best picture category had creatures that were storyline drivers with significant on-screen time. Neither Beasts of the Southern Wild (which featured extinct aurochs) or Life of Pi (which featured a CGI Bengal tiger named Richard Parker) used real animals.

An Oscar's not the only way for animals to get ahead, though. Two years after this photo was published, the American Humane Association's Los Angeles Film & TV Unit was established to monitor and protect animals working on show business sets. The group's creation was spurred by the death of a horse during the filming of 1939's Jessie James.

Today, it's still the only organization that stamps "No Animals Were Harmed" onto a movie's closing credits.

Editor's note: This is part of a series of pieces that looks at the news through the lens of the National Geographic photo archives.

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Oscars 2013: 'Argo' Wins Best Picture

"Argo" took home the top prize as best picture at the Oscars Sunday night, with first lady Michelle Obama announcing the winner from the White House.

"You directed a hell of a film," co-producer Grant Heslov told director and fellow producer Ben Affleck. "I couldn't be more proud of the film and more proud of our director."

Affleck was snubbed in the directing category but humbly accepted the best picture Oscar as one of the three producers on the film. George Clooney was the third.

Affleck thanked Steven Spielberg and the other best picture nominees and his wife Jennifer Garner for "working on our marriage."

"It's good, it's work," he said, adding, "but there's no one I'd rather work with."

For Full List of Winners

Acknowledging his last Oscar win, as a screenwriter for "Good Will Hunting," Affleck said, "I was really just a kid. I never thought I would be back here."

In the acting categories, Daniel Day-Lewis won the Oscar for best actor, being the first actor to three-peat in that category. As he accepted the award from Hollywood's greatest actress, Meryl Streep, he joked, "I had actually been committed to play Margaret Thatcher. ... Meryl was Stephen's first choice for Lincoln."

He also thanked his wife, Rebecca Miller, for "living with some very strange men," with each new role that he takes on.

"She's the versatile one in the family and she's been the perfect companion to all of them," he said.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Daniel Day-Lewis Gets Laughs With Oscars Speech Watch Video

Jennifer Lawrence won the award for best actress. She tripped on the stairs on her way to accepting her award but picked herself up and made her way to the stage, earning a standing ovation.

"You're just standing up because you feel bad that I fell and that's embarrassing," she said, before rattling off a list of thank-yous and leaving the stage looking slightly stunned.

Watch Jennifer Lawrence's Oscar Tumble

"Life of Pi," which had a total of 11 nominations, was another big winner of the night. Director Ang Lee took home the Oscar for best director over Steven Spielberg and David O. Russell.

"Thank you, movie god," Lee said, accepting his award.

As expected, the film took home the first technical awards of the night for cinematography and visual effects. "Life of Pi" also won for best original score.

The first big acting awards of the night went to Christoph Waltz and Anne Hathaway in the supporting actor categories.

In one of the biggest tossups, Waltz claimed the award for supporting actor for his role in "Django Unchained." It was his second Oscar for a Quentin Tarantino film; his first was for Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds."

PHOTOS: Stars on the Red Carpet

As expected, Hathaway took home the award for best supporting actress for her role as Fantine in "Les Miserables."

"It came true," she said, launching into a breathy speech, in which she thanked the cast and crew, her team and her husband. "The greatest moment of my life was when you walked into it," she said.

Tarantino won the Oscar for best original screenplay for his slave revenge western "Django Unchained." He thanked his cast.

"I have to cast the right people," he said. "And boy this time did I do it."

Chris Terrio won the award for best adapted screenplay for "Argo," which also won for film editing.

For only the sixth time in Academy history, there was a tie at the Oscars. "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Skyfall" tied for sound editing.

See Other Ties in Academy History

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Amazon to open market in second-hand MP3s and e-books

A new market for second-hand digital downloads could let us hold virtual yard sales of our ever-growing piles of intangible possessions

WHY buy second-hand? For physical goods, the appeal is in the price – you don't mind the creases in a book or rust spots on a car if it's a bargain. Although digital objects never lose their good-as-new lustre, their very nature means there is still uncertainty about whether we actually own them in the first place, making it tricky to set up a second-hand market. Now an Amazon patent for a system to support reselling digital purchases could change that.

Amazon's move comes after last year's European Union ruling that software vendors cannot stop customers from reselling their products. But without technical support, the ruling has had no impact. In Amazon's system, customers will keep their digital purchases – such as e-books or music – in a personal data store in the cloud that only they can access, allowing them to stream or download the content.

This part is like any cloud-based digital locker except that the customer can resell previous purchases by passing the access rights to another person. Once the transaction is complete, the seller will lose access to the content. Any system for reselling an e-book, for example, would have to ensure that it is not duplicated in the transaction. That means deleting any copies the seller may have lying around on hard drives, e-book readers, and other cloud services, since that would violate copyright.

Amazon may be the biggest company to consider a second-hand market, but it is not the first. ReDigi, based in Boston, has been running a resale market for digital goods since 2011. After downloading an app, users can buy a song on ReDigi for as little as 49 cents that would costs 99 cents new on iTunes.

When users want to sell an item, they upload it to ReDigi's servers via a mechanism that ensures no copy is made during the transfer. Software checks that the seller does not retain a copy. Once transferred, the item can be bought and downloaded by another customer. ReDigi is set to launch in Europe in a few months.

Digital items on ReDigi are cheaper because they are one-offs. If your hard drive crashes and you lose your iTunes collection you can download it again. But you can only download an item from ReDigi once – there is no other copy. That is the trade-off that makes a second-hand digital market work: the risk justifies the price. The idea has ruffled a few feathers – last year EMI sued ReDigi for infringement of copyright. A judge denied the claim, but the case continues.

Used digital goods can also come with added charm. ReDigi tracks the history of the items traded so when you buy something, you can see who has owned it and when. ReDigi's second-hand marketplace has grown into a social network. According to ReDigi founder John Ossenmacher, customers like seeing who has previously listened to a song. "It's got soul like an old guitar," he says. "We've introduced this whole feeling of connectedness."

It could be good for business too if the original vendors, such as iTunes, were to support resale and take a cut of the resell price. Nevertheless, Amazon's move bucks the industry trend. Microsoft's new Xbox, for example, is expected not to work with second-hand games.

But the market could change rapidly now that Amazon's weight is behind this, says Ossenmacher. "The industry is waking up."

This article appeared in print under the headline "Old MP3, one careful owner"

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Lift-door stickers to drive home fire hazard message

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) has unveiled lift-door stickers with fire safety messages as part of a campaign to generate greater public awareness on the dangers of discarding items at common areas such as corridors, lift lobbies, staircases and void decks.

One such sticker was unveiled by Senior Minister of State for Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs, Mr Masagos Zulkifli, at Blk 819, Tampines West Avenue 3 on Sunday.

The senior minister of state is also an MP for Tampines GRC.

Fires involving discarded items at common areas in HDB estates account for almost a quarter of the total number of residential fires in 2012.

SCDF says such fires have the potential to be more serious in nature due to the high fire load present and proximity to dwellings.

18 people were injured in 707 fires involving discarded items last year.

SCDF says leaving discarded items at the common areas, especially combustible items such as furniture and newspapers, can easily fuel fires when lighted materials such as cigarette butts are indiscriminately thrown onto them.

Cluttered common areas can also seriously hamper fire-fighting efforts, fire evacuation and conveyance of patients during a medical emergency.

- CNA/ir

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Nokia at MWC 2013: Join us Sunday (live blog)

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop's keynote address at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, last year.

(Credit:
Roger Cheng/CNET)

BARCELONA, Spain--Will Nokia unleash another Lumia smartphone?

Nokia kicks off the first official day of Mobile World Congress with its press conference, and you can get all the news right here.

Rather than a high-end superphone, Nokia is expected to unveil a line of more budget-friendly phones in a bid to go after the mass market. That could mean a lower-end Lumia device, as well phones from its Asha line of ultra-low-end phones.

CNET UK's Luke Westaway, photographer Sarah Tew, and I will be bringing you all the details, photos, and commentary from the event. The event kicks off at 11:30 p.m. PT on Sunday, or 8:30 a.m. Monday in local Barcelona time.

You can tune into the live blog here:

Nokia's Mobile World Congress press conference

Nokia, like many cellphone makers, is on the road to recovery, and it's still unclear where the company is headed. Its line of Lumia smartphones has won critical praise, but it doesn't yet have a blockbuster hit like Apple's iPhone or the Galaxy S from Samsung.

Still, the company has made steady progress expanding its distribution. In the U.S., it just got back into the game with Verizon with the Lumia 620, and CEO Stephen Elop has hinted at a potential flagship down the line.

We'll see if Nokia can keep up its momentum with whatever new products it launches tomorrow.

As usual, we'll be using ScribbleLive to bring you live text and photos, blow by blow. We'll start the live blog about 15 minutes before Nokia officially kicks off its event.

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Elderly Abandoned at World's Largest Religious Festival

Every 12 years, the northern Indian city of Allahabad plays host to a vast gathering of Hindu pilgrims called the Maha Kumbh Mela. This year, Allahabad is expected to host an estimated 80 million pilgrims between January and March. (See Kumbh Mela: Pictures From the Hindu Holy Festival)

People come to Allahabad to wash away their sins in the sacred River Ganges. For many it's the realization of their life's goal, and they emerge feeling joyful and rejuvenated. But there is also a darker side to the world's largest religious gathering, as some take advantage of the swirling crowds to abandon elderly relatives.

"They wait for this Maha Kumbh because many people are there so nobody will know," said one human rights activist who has helped people in this predicament and who wished to remain anonymous. "Old people have become useless, they don't want to look after them, so they leave them and go."

Anshu Malviya, an Allahabad-based social worker, confirmed that both men and women have been abandoned during the religious event, though it has happened more often to elderly widows. Numbers are hard to come by, since many people genuinely become separated from their groups in the crowd, and those who have been abandoned may not admit it. But Malviya estimates that dozens of people are deliberately abandoned during a Maha Kumbh Mela, at a very rough guess.

To a foreigner, it seems puzzling that these people are not capable of finding their own way home. Malviya smiles. "If you were Indian," he said, "you wouldn't be puzzled. Often they have never left their homes. They are not educated, they don't work. A lot of the time they don't even know which district their village is in."

Once the crowd disperses and the volunteer-run lost-and-found camps that provide temporary respite have packed away their tents, the abandoned elderly may have the option of entering a government-run shelter. Conditions are notoriously bad in these homes, however, and many prefer to remain on the streets, begging. Some gravitate to other holy cities such as Varanasi or Vrindavan where, if they're lucky, they are taken in by temples or charity-funded shelters.

In these cities, they join a much larger population, predominantly women, whose families no longer wish to support them, and who have been brought there because, in the Hindu religion, to die in these holy cities is to achieve moksha or Nirvana. Mohini Giri, a Delhi-based campaigner for women's rights and former chair of India's National Commission for Women, estimates that there are 10,000 such women in Varanasi and 16,000 in Vrindavan.

But even these women are just the tip of the iceberg, says economist Jean Drèze of the University of Allahabad, who has campaigned on social issues in India since 1979. "For one woman who has been explicitly parked in Vrindavan or Varanasi, there are a thousand or ten thousand who are living next door to their sons and are as good as abandoned, literally kept on a starvation diet," he said.

According to the Hindu ideal, a woman should be looked after until the end of her life by her male relatives—with responsibility for her shifting from her father to her husband to her son. But Martha Chen, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University who published a study of widows in India in 2001, found that the reality was often very different.

Chen's survey of 562 widows of different ages revealed that about half of them were supporting themselves in households that did not include an adult male—either living alone, or with young children or other single women. Many of those who did live with their families reported harassment or even violence.

According to Drèze, the situation hasn't changed since Chen's study, despite the economic growth that has taken place in India, because widows remain vulnerable due to their lack of education and employment. In 2010, the World Bank reported that only 29 percent of the Indian workforce was female. Moreover, despite changes in the law designed to protect women's rights to property, in practice sons predominantly inherit from their parents—leaving women eternally dependent on men. In a country where 37 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line, elderly dependent relatives fall low on many people's lists of priorities.

This bleak picture is all too familiar to Devshran Singh, who oversees the Durga Kund old people's home in Varanasi. People don't pay toward the upkeep of their relatives, he said, and they rarely visit. In one case, a doctor brought an old woman to Durga Kund claiming she had been abandoned. After he had gone, the woman revealed that the doctor was her son. "In modern life," said Singh, "people don't have time for their elderly."

Drèze is currently campaigning for pensions for the elderly, including widows. Giri is working to make more women aware of their rights. And most experts agree that education, which is increasingly accessible to girls in India, will help improve women's plight. "Education is a big force of social change," said Drèze. "There's no doubt about that."

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Las Vegas Strip Shooting Suspect ID'd

Las Vegas police identified a suspect today in a shooting on the strip that caused a Maserati to hit a taxi and burst into flames, killing three people.

Ammar Harris, 26, has been named a suspect in the Thursday skirmish that killed three people, including rapper Kenny Clutch.

The altercation between Harris and Clutch, 27, whose legal name was Kenneth Cherry Jr., is believed to have originated in the valet area of a Las Vegas hotel, police said.

Police said Harris fired several rounds into a Maserati that was being driven by Cherry as both vehicles continued northbound on glitzy Las Vegas Boulevard.

The rapper's expensive sports car careened out of control after he was shot, slamming into several cars, including a taxi. The impact caused the cab to burst into flames, killing the driver, Michael Boldon and a female passenger. Witnesses said it looked like the car exploded.

"He was a number one guy," Carolyn Jean Trimble, Boldon's sister, told ABC News.

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"I looked out my window and I could see one vehicle down here on the corner of the intersection totally engulfed in flames," witness John Lamb told ABC News.

Boldon, 62, and his passenger, who has not yet been identified, were both killed, as was Clutch.

Timble said her brother loved driving his taxi around Vegas.

"He came to live with me in Las Vegas last year to help take care of our mother, and the first day he got here he said, 'I have to get a job.' The second day, I came home from work, and he said he got a job," she recalled.

"He says, 'You'll never guess what it is,' and I said, 'what,' and he said, 'taxi cab driver,' and we both fell out laughing," Trimble said. "He loved that job. He never complained. He'd come home and tell me stories about what happened, who he picked up."

Boldon was a single father who raised a 36-year-old son and was a new grandfather. His grandson was named after him, Trimble said.

"Of all the people to take from this earth," she said. "But I guess the Lord needed him."

A passenger in the Maserati was hit and sustained only a minor injury to his arm. Clutch died at University Medical Center.

His father, Kenneth Cherry Sr., expressed his grief for the loss of his son while speaking with ABC News.

"This is something you never really, really ever want to experience as a parent, to lose a child before you go," he said.

Harris is described as 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Las Vegas Metro Police Department's homicide division.

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