Terminate the Terminators

Robots are now a fact of war, but the prospect of androids that can hunt and kill on their own should give us all pause

When U.S. forces invaded Iraq in 2003, they fought a traditional war of human on human. Since then, robots have joined the fight. Both there and in Afghanistan, thousands of “unmanned” systems dismantle roadside IEDs, take that first peek around the corner at a sniper’s lair and launch missiles at Taliban hideouts. Robots are pouring onto battlefields as if a new species of mechanotronic alien had just landed on our planet.

It is not the first time that the technology of warfare has advanced more rapidly than the body of international law that seeks to restrain its use. During World War I, cannons shot chemical weapons at and airplanes dropped bombs on unsuspecting cities. Only later did nations reach a verdict on whether it was acceptable to target a munitions factory next to a primary school.

Something similar is happening today with potentially even more profound and disturbing consequences. As Brookings Institution analyst P. W. Singer describes in “War of the Machines,” the rise of robots leads to the frightening prospect of making obsolete the rule book by which nations go to war. Armed conflict between nation states is brutal, but at least it proceeds according to a set of rules grounded both in international law and in the demands of military discipline. It is not true that anything goes in the heat of battle. “Such rules are certainly not always followed, but their very existence is what separates killing in war from murder and what distinguishes soldiers from criminals,” writes Singer in Wired for War, his recent popular book on the military robotic revolution.

Those rules are stretched to their breaking point when robots go to war. The legal and ethical questions abound. Who is accountable when a Predator’s missile hits the wrong target? Missiles from errant drones have already killed as many as 1,000 civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Does responsibility reside with a field commander in the Middle East where spotters identified the “target of interest”? Or should blame be apportioned to the “remote pilot” stationed at a military base near Las Vegas who launched the strike from 7,000 miles away? And what about a software engineer who might have committed a programming error that caused a misfire?

Considering rules of engagement for war-at-a-distance raises a surreal set of questions. Does the remote operator in Nevada remain a legal combatant—in other words, a legitimate enemy target—on the trip after work to Walmart or to a daughter’s soccer match? Would an increasingly sketchy line between warrior and civilian invite attacks on U.S. soil against homes and schools?

Remote-controlled robots are here to stay, and rules can be worked out to regulate their use. But the more serious threat comes from semiautonomous machines over which humans retain nothing more than last-ditch veto power. These systems are only a software upgrade away from fully self-sufficient operation. The prospect of androids that hunt down and kill on their own accord (shades of Terminator) should give us all pause. An automatic pilot that makes its own calls about whom to shoot violates the “human” part of international humanitarian law, the one that recognizes that some weapons are so abhorrent that they just should be eliminated.

Some might call a ban on autonomous robots naive or complain that it would tie the hands of soldiers faced with irregular warfare. But although robots have clear tactical advantages, they carry a heavy strategic price. The laws of war are an act not of charity but of self-interest; the U.S. would be weakened, not strengthened, if chemical and biological weapons were widespread, and the same is true of robots. They are a cheap way to offset conventional military strength, and other nations and groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon are already deploying them. The U.S. may not always be the leader in this technology and would be well advised to negotiate restrictions on their use from a position of strength. We can never put the genie back into the bottle, but putting a hold on further development of this technology could limit the damage.

Supersonic Green Machine sends greetings from the future

By Vlad Savov posted Jun 29th 2010 3:32AM

While many of us are busy debating the relative merits of pocket-sized technology, NASA is mulling over ideas on a much grander scale. Submitted as part of the Administration's research into advanced aeronautics, the above Lockheed Martin-designed aircraft is just one vision of how air travel might be conducted in the future. It's a supersonic jet employing an inverted-V engine-under-wing configuration, which apparently helps to significantly reduce the resultant sonic boom. Other than that, we're only told that "other revolutionary technologies" will provide for the achievement of range, payload and environmental goals. So that snazzy paintjob wasn't just for show, after all -- who'd have guessed?

Creationists suffer another legal defeat

Some good news from Texas! Yeehaw!

The Institute for Creation Research — one of the biggest nonsense-paddlers in the 6000 year history of the world — was handed a nice defeat this week. That link to the National Center for Science Education (the good guys) has all the info you need, but to summarize: the ICR moved from California to Texas. In the previous state, for reasons beyond understanding, the were able to grant Master’s degrees in their graduate school. But Texas didn’t recognize their accreditation, so they filed to get it approved.

Not so surprisingly, scientists and educators rose in protest, and in 2008 the Texas Higher Education Coordination Board — the organization that grants accreditation — denied the ICR. The creationists appealed. In the meantime, they also tried to extend their ability to grant degrees temporarily while the lawsuit continued. What happened this week is that the extension as denied.

And I mean denied. Check out what the court said:

It appears that although the Court has twice required Plaintiff [the ICR] to re-plead and set forth a short and plain statement of the relief requested, Plaintiff is entirely unable to file a complaint which is not overly verbose, disjointed, incoherent, maundering, and full of irrelevant information.

That’s not surprising, as that’s the only kind of information the ICR is capable of producing. Not to mention wrong. See the Related Posts links below for lots more on the ICR’s recent follies.

As far as I can tell, this defeat means that the ICR is still seeking accreditation, but until and unless it does, it cannot grant degrees in Texas.

So what can be said about this? Oh, let me quote one of the pithiest and to-the-point minds of our day:

Haha!

New high-power battery may lead to big hybrid vehicles

By Casey Johnston | Last updated about 15 hours ago

A new type of high-power battery may help make larger hybrid vehicles a reality, according to a research paper published this week. A group of scientists at MIT have found a way to use carbon nanotubes to create a device that combines the strengths of batteries and capacitors, resulting in a battery than can both store a large amount of energy and put out a high rate of power. The ability to provide a better combination of high power and rapid discharge may help engineers tailor the batteries to a broader range of vehicles.

Batteries and capacitors have long occupied independent niches when it comes to storing electricity. Lithium batteries can store a significant amount of energy using chemical processes, but can only supply a low rate of power; capacitors can deliver a lot of power at once by eliminating the difference between two oppositely charged plates, but have low total energy storage.

Researchers have been trying to mitigate the shortcomings of both devices for some time, by either forcing higher rates of output from batteries or more storage from capacitors. They've achieved some success in increasing the rate of discharge from lithium batteries by shortening the distance that the ions diffuse to a few nanometers, but the output remained too low for many high-power applications. Similar efforts to adapt capacitors have yielded limited successes.

To get the functionality they were looking for, researchers needed a material that could quickly shuffle ions around the battery, but would also bond strongly to them, ensuring a higher release of energy when the ions are released. As is often the case in materials science, they needed to look no further than carbon nanotubes.

To construct an electrode for their new battery, the researchers created alternating layers of carbon nanotube sheets coated with carboxylic acid and amine functional groups—these can undergo charge transfer reactions with lithium ion charge carriers. Their addition also seems to roughen up the surface of the nanotubes, increasing the surface area available for reactions.

The researchers tested a battery that used the layered carbon nanotube electrode on the positive end, and a lithium electrode on the negative end. The power output of the batteries declined as the nanotube electrode's thickness increased, placing a ceiling on its numbers. But an electrode three micrometers thick could still deliver energies of 200 watt-hours per kilogram (a bit better than current-generation lithium batteries), and a power of 100 kilowatts per kilogram. They were able to match the energy of lithium ion batteries at lower power outputs, and at high power had better energy delivery than the nanoscale-diffusion lithium batteries.

While these numbers were impressive, batteries with pure lithium electrodes are not the norm. For a more realistic setup, researchers tried instead using a composite electrode made of lithium titanium oxide along with the carbon nanotube electrode. They found that these batteries had lower energy and power, but at 30 watt-hours per kilogram and 5 kilowatts per kilogram, their performance is several times better than the current generation of capacitors. The battery was also very resilient, showing no drop in performance even after 2,500 cycles.

The new battery doesn't best either capacitors or batteries at their respective strengths— it stores energy only about as well as any lithium ion battery, and supplies rushes of power as well as a capacitor. However, it may find use as a versatile middle-of-the-road device that has high storage and can supply bursts of power if needed.

Researchers hope that this new style of battery will eventually allow for larger hybrid vehicles that are less reliant on their gas engines to sustain a high power draw. Potential benefactors of the technology might include tractor trailers and buses.

The authors indicate that they plan to continue by verifying how the electrodes behave on larger scales, where "larger" means tens and hundred of micrometers. They also hope to develop ways to prevent some of the energy loss during charging and discharging. The new battery may also benefit from a new method of assembling multiwalled carbon nanotubes by spraying them on layer by layer, which may allow fine tuning of the voltage differences needed during charge and discharge.

Nature Nanotechnology, 2010. DOI: 10.1038/NNANO.2010.116 (About DOIs)

BP Purchases 32 of Kevin Costner's Oil-Water Separation Machines [Oil Disaster]

BP Purchases 32 of Kevin Costner's Oil-Water Separation Machines [Oil Disaster]: "

Laugh you may have when you heard that Kevin Costner was stepping into BP's oil spill disaster with a potential solution, but BP has now snapped up 32 of the centrifuge machines to help separate the oil from the water. More »

"

Intensive farming 'massively slowed' global warming

Intensive farming 'massively slowed' global warming: "A new analysis says that the green revolution, with its fertilisers, pesticides and high-yielding hybrids, has restrained greenhouse-gas emissions

"

Behind Apple's Stunningly Crafted iPhone is a Patent

Basically, most consumers really don't care about how the sexy new iPhone is made; they just want to be able to enjoy buying this stunningly crafted device called the iPhone 4 and get out there and start flashing it in the face of their friends who are sad owners of the thick-brick Android or even the butt ugly Android. They don't really care about the shape of the iPhone's gasket or that the manufacturing process utilizes liquid metal so as to avoid gaps or spaces between the glass and metal members – or that Apple uses alloys with liquid atomic structures. Yet to future engineers and possibly those that will be the next generation of Crazy Ones in Cupertino, it definitely matters. Today's brief report points you to one of many Patents that are behind the coolest iPhone ever – with a few pointers along the way.

Engineering Precision: Engineering Cool

Patent Background

During the manufacture of electronic devices such as a cellular telephone, transparent components are often held within housings. By way of example, many electronic devices have displays that include glass or plastic Windows which are held by a metal housing. Typically, a metal frame or housing is formed, and a glass component or a plastic component is inserted into the formed frame or housing.

In order to properly secure a metal frame and a glass component together, the tolerances associated with the fit between the metal frame and the glass component must he strictly maintained. That is, the tolerance matches between the metal frame and the glass component are maintained such that the glass component may be inserted into the metal frame and held in place. An overall assembly that includes a metal frame and a glass component inserted therein may be held together by a press fit, using adhesive materials, and/or using mechanical structures such as screws. If the tolerance matches between the metal frame and the glass component are not strictly maintained, the integrity of the overall assembly may be compromised. For relatively small assemblies, maintaining critical tolerances between metal frames and glass components such that tolerance mismatches are unlikely to occur may be difficult.

Apple's patent covers some of the intricate methods and processes that are required to ensure that the assemblies of devices that are mating metal with glass, like the iPhone 4 or iMac, are incredibly accurate so as to provide stunning end user products where metal and glass simply appear as if they're naturally blending together without seam. And the only seams that are present on the design, are ingeniously a series of antennas that are brought together to create the primary structure of the new iPhone. Jonathan Ives, Senior Vice President, Industrial Design explains this in Apple's new iPhone 4 video.

Integrally Formed Glass and Metal

Apple's patent FIG. 11 is a diagrammatic perspective of an iPhone that includes a housing that includes and integrally formed glass and metal part. Apple's patent FIG. 8A is a diagrammatic top view representation of a transparent member on which a layer of compliant material has been formed. In FIG. 8B we see a cross-sectional side view of an overall assembly that includes a transparent member and a metal member which are in substantial contact through a layer of compliant material.

Liquid Metal, Synthetic Sapphire & More

According to one aspect of the present invention, a method includes positioning a transparent member in a mold configured for insertion molding, and providing a liquid metal into the mold. The method also includes hardening the liquid metal in the mold. Hardening the liquid metal includes binding the metal to the transparent member to create the integral assembly.

The metal in liquid form may for example correspond to amorphous alloys, which are metals that may behave like plastic, or alloys with liquid atomic structures. Liquid Metal is one suitable example for the metal in liquid form. Substantially any metal or, more generally, material in liquid form which has a thermal expansion rate that is similar to the thermal expansion rate of liquid metal may be used in an insertion molding process.

Additionally, the patent uniquely states that the display could be made of any suitable transparent material such as the exotic synthetic sapphire. So what did Apple end up using in their new iPhone 4? Aluminosilicate glass – the very same glass used in the windshields of helicopters and high-speed trains. Hell - let it be known that this kind of glass is also used in space-vehicle windows.

The channels and cavities of the device, according to the patent, could be formed in a variety of ways. In one example, channels and cavities are formed via machining or cutting operations. Alternatively, they may be formed with a cutting beam such as a laser or water jet stream – as shown in one of the processes in Apple's iPhone video.

Methods of Design go beyond the iPhone

Although only a few embodiments of the present invention were described in Apple's patent, it should be understood, according to their patent, that the present invention could be embodied in many other specific forms without departing from the spirit or the scope of the present invention. By way of example, the steps associated with the methods of the present invention may vary widely. Steps could he added, removed, altered, combined, and reordered without departing from the spirit of the scope of the present invention.

By way of example, and not by way of limitation, the electronic device may correspond to media players, cellular phones, PDAs, remote controls, notebooks, tablet PCs, monitors, all in one computers and the like. Apple's iMac would be a classic metal and glass end user product using these processes.

Apple credits Kyle Yeates as the sole inventor of this patent titled "Methods and Systems for Integrally Trapping a Glass Insert in a Metal Bezel." The patent was originally filed in Q4 2007 and recently published in the European Patent Office database. They credit the source of the application as being South Korea under patent number KR20100036365. This patent could also be found in the World Intellectual Property Organization's database under WO 2009009764.

The Mini Monolith: Now Available at the Apple Store

Since the dawn of time, cavemen and astronaut alike have been in awe of the great black Monolith. They were drawn to it. All had to touch it – and all wondered aloud: What could this be? Wonder no more: The mini monolith is now available in handheld form at the Apple Store: Welcome to iPhone 4.

Notice: Patently Apple presents only a brief summary of patents with associated graphic(s) for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent application should be read in its entirety for further details.

Our Report is also Being Covered By: MacSurfer, Tech Investor News Apple, MacDailyNews, iPhoneItalia Italy, Jim Cramer (Twitter site), Maclalala2 Japan and more.

CBS Testing iPad-Friendly HTML5 Video Delivery Methods

Thursday June 17, 2010 11:10 AM EST
Written by Eric Slivka

CBS is continuing to move forward with its plans to deliver streaming video of its television content in an iPad-friendly HTML5 format, eliminating the networks existing reliance on Adobe's Flash Player for serving content. In March, we notedthat the company appeared to be preparing HTML5 versions of its streaming content, and CBS Interactive Senior Vice President Anthony Soohoo confirmedlast month that the company plans to have its full CBS.com lineup available in HTML5 by the start of the fall television season.

mocoNews caught up with Soohoo recently and reports that CBS is currently engaged in testing its HTML5 delivery using episodes of Star Trek Enterprise as the network seeks to reach "parity" with Flash delivery methods.

"What you see right now is a small, little experiment," Soohoo explained, with Star Trek Enterprise as an "ideal" subject, in part because of its fan base and because CBS owns it. "We're currently just testing for the time being." CBSi plans to move towards HTML5 parity with Flash video but first Soohoo and his team need to find the right mix of tools. It's not hard to offer the video in both versions but it's far more complicated than that.

"Our goal is over time at some point having content parity. The tools aren't mature yet - security needs to be there, second thing we need is all the tracking and measurement. If we can't track, we can't monetize." Adobe Flash is still the way most CBSi users get their video; as important, it's how ads are served.

While stopping short of a commitment, Soohoo notes that CBS is currently leaning toward offering both browser-based video streaming and dedicated apps, choosing to "follow where the audiences are".

ABC made a splash with its early launch of a dedicated iPad application for its streaming content, and while CBS had initially appeared to be focusing on browser-based delivery, it now seems that the network will be taking a more fluid approach and remains open to multiple possibilities.

Not all networks and content providers are following ABC and CBS in jumping on the iPad/HTML5 bandwagon, however. A number of media companies, includingNBC and Time Warner, have pledged their continued support for Flash streaming, pointing to the format's continued dominance on the Web and shortcomings in HTML5 feature offerings.

Motorola 'Droid X' to Challenge iPhone 4's Retina Display?

Thursday June 17, 2010 12:20 PM EST
Written by Eric Slivka

Verizon Wireless has posted a teaser for Motorola's forthcoming "Droid X" smartphone. Notably, the teaser claims that the device will feature a 4.3-inch display with a "720P Screen". The claim would appear to suggest that the Droid X's display might carry a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels.

One of Apple's claimed breakthrough features for iPhone 4 is its "Retina display"running at 960 x 640 pixels at 326 pixels-per-inch, offering improved viewing by making individual pixels undistinguishable at typical viewing distances.

The Droid X's apparent larger pixel count coupled with its larger display size suggests that it could offer a nearly identical pixel size to Apple's iPhone 4, but with the ability to display more content on its larger surface area.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs claimed during iPhone 4's introduction last week that the device's Retina display would set the standard for smartphone displays for the next several years. Motorola appears to be moving quickly to counter Apple's technological leap, however, and while the full specs of the Droid X and its display aren't yet known, it at least attempts to meet or exceed one of iPhone 4's key marketing points.

Serafinowicz: Five Reasons I Love Apple and Five Reasons I Hate Apple

June 16, 2010 Apple's success in the digital music and mobile phone markets has transformed the company from an underdog with a cult following to a l

June 16, 2010

Apple's success in the digital music and mobile phone markets has transformed the company from an underdog with a cult following to a leader in the mass market. Investors recently made this change in status official, pushing the total value of Apple's shares higher than any other technology company's.

That success is driven in large part by good technology and relentless innovation, but also by the lingering notion that Apple is, well, different from the soulless corporate behemoths it competes with. Yet the bare-knuckled competitiveness that helped Apple get to this point may prove to be a liability now that it's no longer a little tech company making beautiful but underappreciated devices.

The company's sharp elbows were on display again last week when Apple issued new rules for developers making applications for iPhones and iPads. Many developers have given their applications away, seeking profits instead by selling space within the programs to advertisers. The rules essentially bar developers from using advertising networks linked to Google, Microsoft, Nokia or any of Apple's other rivals in the mobile phone market. Instead, developers who want to sell ads in their applications will have to use Apple's iAd network or one of its smaller competitors. The restriction recalls the company's move in April to require applications to be written with its software tools _ a devastating blow to Adobe's efforts to get its popular Flash software onto the iPhone and iPad.

Apple contends that its efforts to control its software platforms are vital to delivering a better experience for consumers. But it's one thing to pre-empt offensive or clunky applications; it's another to require developers to use Apple's software or ad network to gain access to its customers.

Apple has also been embarrassed lately by accusations of worker exploitation after a spate of suicides at factories operated by Foxconn, its main Chinese manufacturer. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs responded, characteristically, by claiming that his company is exceptionally rigorous when it comes to overseeing its suppliers. Yet worker activists say Apple bears some of the blame for Foxconn's subsistence-pay wages and long work shifts because it persuaded Foxconn to build devices for such a low price.

Although federal antitrust officials are reportedly looking into Apple's effort to bar rival advertising networks, it's hard to see how the company's tactics violate the law. Simply put, the iPhone doesn't dominate the smartphone market. The more important question is how consumers will react to the emerging picture of Apple. They may shrug off all these developments because they don't change how Apple's products perform. Or they may decide that the company revered for thinking different has become just another corporate bully.

(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Water-splitting Photocatalyst Brought to Light

June 16, 2010 by Kendra Snyder

Enlarge

(a) Structure of pure anatase; (b) N/Ti3+/O vacancy defect complex with O opposite N; (c) "Merging" of two O into central position. In (b) and (c), the Ti3+ ion is obscured from this viewpoint.

(PhysOrg.com) -- To produce "green" fuels, some scientists are looking for a little help from above. Sunlight is the key ingredient in photocatalytic water splitting, a process that breaks down water into oxygen and, most importantly, hydrogen, which could be used in future energy technologies like fuel cells. The problem is that the most effective photocatalysts, like pure titanium dioxide, are only activated by ultraviolet light.

"Of the sunlight that reaches the Earth's surface, only about five percent is ultraviolet light," said NSLS researcher Abdul Rumaiz. "If we can alter titanium dioxide to react to visible light, we'd have the power of the entire solar spectrum."

Recently, scientists have found a way to do that by adding, or "doping," a small amount of nitrogen to titanium dioxide. This slight change makes a big difference in the material's catalytic activity; nitrogen-doped titanium dioxide is highly reactive to visible light.

At the NSLS, Rumaiz and a group of scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Delaware set out to reveal what’s so special about the doped form of the material.

"There was some controversy surrounding the electronic structure of nitrogen-doped titanium dioxide," said NIST researcher Joe Woicik. "We wanted to resolve that fundamental issue."

The group analyzed samples made at the University of Delaware with hard x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HAXPES) studies at NSLS beamline X24A - the only facility in the United States that performs this advanced technique. HAXPES allows researchers to probe the electronic structure of materials deeper than regular photoemission studies, which are usually limited to surfaces. By combining this data with calculations carried out by the theory group at NIST, the researchers found out how nitrogen affects the overall material.

Enlarge

(a) Theoretical DOS and the experimental valence band for pure anatase TiO2. (b) Theoretical DOS and the experimental valence band for N doped anatase TiO2. The curves have been scaled to equal peak height.

"The addition of nitrogen changed the electronic structure both directly and indirectly," Rumaiz said. "The indirect one has the biggest impact."

By adding nitrogen to the material, a certain amount of oxygen was forced out, he said. The resulting oxygen vacancy, combined with the presence of nitrogen, explains the observed electronic structure

"This research is a really nice example of how closely tied the electronic structure is to the atomic structure of a material," Woicik said.

Other authors include E. Cockayne (NIST) and Hong-Ying Lin, G. Hassnain Jaffari, and S. Ismat Shah (University of Delaware). Their results were published in the December 28, 2009 edition of Applied Physics Letters.

More information: A.K. Rumaiz, J.C. Woicik, E. Cockayne, H.Y. Lin, G. H. Jaffari, and S.I. Shah, “Oxygen Vacancies in N Doped Anatase TiO2: Experiment and First-principles Calculations,” Applied Physics Letters, 95, 262111 (2009).

Provided by Brookhaven National Laboratory (news : web)

With the promise ofcontrolling your torrents from any browser, the exciting uTorrent Webproject (also known as "Falcon") has upped the ante even more bycustomizing its web interface for iPhones, with strong encryption generated from random finger sliding around the screen and a pretty slick interface for adding, stopping, and starting your torrent downloads at home. The iPhone interface seems to load through the Android browser just fine, too. [BitTorrent Blog via TorrentFreak]

Ocean once covered the northern third of Mars

By John Timmer | Last updated a day ago

G. Di Achille

There's little doubt that, at least early in its history, Mars had significant quantities of liquid water. Everything from mineral deposits to ancient shorelines and river-like features indicate that the watery period peaked near the border between the planet's Noachian and Hesperian epochs, about 3.5 billion years ago. There has been some debate, however, about just how much water was present at that time. A paper published over the weekend in Nature Geoscience argues that there was enough to cover the planet's northern pole in an ocean.

The logic of the analysis is pretty simple, and applies the sort of reasoning we use for determining the Earth's historic ocean levels. In short, you look for geologic features indicative of a shoreline, and see if they line up at the same altitude. In this case, the two authors used a database that tracks the appearance of river deltas on the Martian surface, and uses the Mars Observer Laser Altimeter dataset to get elevations for each of them. If an ancient ocean existed, these features should exist within a narrow range.

On a first pass, the data didn't look very promising, as the mean elevation of the 52 deltaic deposits under consideration varied widely (the standard deviation was over a kilometer). But the authors went through and analyzed each deposit individually, and found that many were associated with a local basin, such as a large crater. Only a third of the features were associated with the outflow of water into the basin that covers the northern hemisphere of the planet, and these were tightly clustered in elevation (a mean elevation of of -2,540m with a standard deviation of 177m).

The authors point out that this is exactly what you'd see if you were looking at an ancient shoreline, writing, "Therefore, the deposits topographically connected to the site occupied by the putative ocean define the closest approximation of an equipotential surface as would be expected if they formed in a single large body of standing water encompassing the northern hemisphere of Mars."

Data from outside the region suggests that there might have been a planet-wide water table in the crust, as there are almost no valleys below the shoreline level that date from the Noachian, even in areas well removed from the northern basin. That changes in more recent eras, suggesting a gradual loss of water planet-wide.

Cumulatively, there seems to have been a lot of water involved—the authors estimate that over 10⁸ cubic kilometers may have been present, with 36 percent of the planet's surface covered in water.

Astronomers Find a Bevy of Exoplanets; Won’t Discuss Most Interesting Ones

It’s the 1840s. Rival astronomers in Britain and France separately toil away in their notebooks, fiercely guarding their calculations of just where a planet beyond Uranus might be hiding, hoping that they and their country will get the glory for finding it. When telescopes finally spot Neptune, the discovery leads to decades of debate over primacy, and scouring each man’s private data to determine who deserved the most credit.

Fast forward to the 21st century: Rivalries may have changed, but in the hunt for new planets—especially becoming the first to detect a new world like our own in a distant star system—defending one’s data to lay claim to discovery has not gone away.

This week the team behind NASA’s planet-hunting space telescope, Kepler, announced that it has found more than 700 new candidates for exoplanets. Given that the current tally of known planets beyond our solar system stands near 460, that’s a huge announcement. But what’s drawn some attention is that more than half of the candidates won’t be released publicly at this time. These include smallest planet candidates—those closest to our own world in size—which won’t be officially announced until February 2011.

It’s no secret why:

“The first astronomer who can prove they found an Earthlike planet around an Earthlike star will win many kudos and prizes,” said John Huchra of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who led a NASA advisory committee that approved the deal. “It’s glory for NASA,” he added.“NASA would like to have one of its missions find an Earthlike planet” [The New York Times].

Given all the time and effort that went into developing Kepler, most astronomers seem to be all right with the team taking its time to analyze its data and get the credit they deserve. The best viewing time to confirm many of them as true exoplanets will take place over this summer. But given the tantalizing contents of Kepler’s catalog and the potential for finding an Earth-like planet it shouldn’t be surprising if people get impatient to have their own look.

The typical planet identified by transit observations (the method used by Kepler) was about 13 Re [Earth radii]. The data that has been released includes about 100 planets that are somewhere between two and four Earth radii—and that’s excluding up to 400 smaller objects [Ars Technica].

In the meantime, those planets Kepler scientists have now publicized should provide fodder for curious stargazers. One new paper says that five stars the telescope studied have multiple exoplanets in orbit. Also, Europe’s CoRoT Space Telescope has added six new giant exoplanets to its own tally, and even spotted a brown dwarf.

Perhaps more eyes would speed up the search for a second Earth. However, it’s hard to blame the Kepler scientists for trying to avoid the claim-to-fame wars of the past.

Wireless Oligopoly Is Smother of Invention

If the people who brought us television had played by the same rules that today'swireless carriers impose - we'd probably all be listening to the radio.

Which is a nice way of saying the wireless industry - AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile - needs some ground rules that make clear they are common carriers that get the right to rent the airwaves by abiding by fair rules.

Right now, they play by their own rules.

Imagine if the wireless carriers controlled your wired broadband connection or your television set. You'd have to buy your television from your cable company, with a two-year contract, and when that ended, you'd have to ask them to unlock it so you could take it to another provider.

If the wireless company ran your ISP, you'd have to use a computer they approved, and if you wanted to use a different one, you'd pay more. Want Wi-Fi in your house? That'll be an extra $30 a month and $150 to buy an approved but functionally limited Wi-Fi device.

Luckily, that's not the case.

Let's recap the freedoms you have with your television: The specs are standard and public. Any company that wants to make a television - whether it be an HD, 3-D, internet-connected plasma 6-footer or a handheld TV Walkman - just makes a television, according to transparent (FCC) spectrum rules.

Then you get to buy it. It just works. You watch the stations you want. You can hook it up to cable or satellite or DVR or plug a DVD player into it.

With your home broadband connection, you can buy the router of your choice, hook up as many computers as you like, and use whatever programs you like on your computers. You can even use your connection as a base station for your cellular phone, or have your bathroom scale automatically report your weight to Twitter.

You can even share that internet connection with whomever you like, including strangers who might otherwise be customers of that same ISP.

When you upgrade your computer or router (or even the smartphone that uses your home Wi-Fi), your ISP doesn't even know and doesn't care.

The world of mobile in the U.S. is different. Much different.

You only get a single device, one that has to be preapproved by the carrier.

The device is almost always locked down. If you manage to pry its OS open enough to install software, you void your warranty.

If you care to use your 3G connection occasionally as a modem for your laptop, be prepared to pay $30 extra a month - or hack the device and (see above) void your warranty.

If you want to switch devices, you'll often be forced to ‘upgrade' to a more expensive plan, even if your current plan offers unlimited data. For instance, Sprint has tens of thousands of users using its old friends-of-a- employee plan, known as SERO, which offered unlimited data on its best smartphones. Unhappy with the bargain it struck, the company refuses to let those customers upgrade to new devices - even if they buy the devices for full price.

Any device that runs on these carrier's networks must be approved by the carriers.

The wireless industry defends itself, saying that it's changed its ways. Long notorious for crippling their phones and strangling app developers who wanted access to their devices, the carriers have loosened their policies, since AT&T made its fateful deal with Apple, which ripped control of the device out of AT&T's hands.

The result showed to the world how the wireless industry had purposely crippled cell phones to boost their bottom lines, customers be damned.

Now, the FCC, which is mulling more official net-neutrality rules, has the chance to finish the job Apple started, but couldn't bring itself to finish - removing the carriers stranglehold over mobile devices.

Unfortunately, the idea of setting basic, common carrier ground rules - rules that simply lay out what freedoms we all expect - are somehow being twisted into the government taking control of the internet. (In which case, we must be living in a Communist country because the proposal is simple.)

Require the nation's wireless carriers to publish the specs they use on their networks, so that any device maker can make a device that works on any network or all the networks. Then require the carriers to offer service, with published limits, to any customer, using any compliant device, at a fair price. Subscribers would have the right to use more than one device, or at the very least, switch them with minimal effort. Those devices could run whatever software they like, so long as they don't harm the network.

That should be the requirement for the carriers who are using the public's spectrum.

AT&T and Sprint and Verizon and T-Mobile may have paid hefty sums to rent the airwaves, but they do not own them.

The carriers will doubtlessly whine to Congress that their networks are too special and too fragile. Meanwhile, they will brag to customers about how strong and robust their cell networks are - touting services like streaming video for the iPhone, Skype on Verizon, and SprintTV on Sprint smartphones.

They can't have it both ways.

If their networks are fragile, then they should lose their licenses, and the country should redistribute them to tech companies that can manage them well.

If the networks are strong and robust, then like their wire-line competitors they should have to open them up to any device that comports with published standards.

There's a history of this. When AT&T was forced to allow non-AT&T approved devices in the Carterfone decision, we soon saw an explosion in new devices that found innovative uses for the network.

We got home answering machines, fax machines and portable phones. Even better, we got modems.

Granted there's been an explosion of innovation (finally) in mobile devices in the past few years. Apple, Palm and HTC are all making beautiful devices that feel like magic in your hand. The Kindle and iPad are likewise magical, relying on 3G connections.

But what we really need is to break the carrier's stranglehold on devices.

We should free the makers and small companies of the world to make devices without having to negotiate with carriers to get their approval.

Say you wanted to make a phone just for weekend nights, say one that included a lighter and a slot for holding whatever kind of cigarette you like. What carrier would offer that phone?

Or how about ones designed for kids, the elderly or the disabled?

A company could make a phone with guts that mesh with a number of networks, making the wireless companies have to compete for your business.

Google made a half-hearted effort to break the carrier's grip with its Nexus One, which they wanted to sell directly to individuals who could then choose their carrier. Among the problems leading Google to close its online store was that the carriers soon decided that playing that game wasn't in their long-term interest. Verizon and Sprint backed out of their commitment to support the device - leaving U.S. customers with only T-Mobile.

The carriers's lobbying association likes to point to all the cool new phones and ask "Where's the harm?" The problem is the harm comes from the devices and services that haven't been invented yet, because wireless isn't an open platform.

We literally don't know what we are missing.

When AT&T was forced to open its network by a federal court, the challenge came from a device maker whose product, the Carterfone, connected a two-way radio to the phone line. It was a nifty invention, though one that few citizens used.

But it opened the way for devices that we all use daily.

It's time to do the same for wireless.

The airwaves are ours, not the networks', and it's past time for them to be open.

Now, we just need an FCC and an administration with the guts to stand up to the dissembling and the lobbying of the nation's wireless carriers. They maintain profit margins of 40 percent, in no small part because they keep choking innovation.

If they don't stop, they ought to lose their licenses.