VZ Navigator

The simplest definition of VZ Navigator is that it's a GPS on a cellphone. You see a detailed map, updated in real time, of where you are and directions to where you're going. While that's the easiest way to describe it, it doesn't do VZ Navigator justice. There are plenty of additional options and features that go way beyond the capabilities of a conventional GPS.

The version I tested was VZ Navigator 2.8.0.80, which I was told was pre-release beta code. However, it was impressively and happily bug-free, and performed fine. Currently, the service is available on the Motorola v325, though I'm told it will soon be available on all new Verizon phones with location tracking capabilities. A picture of the Motorola v325 is on the left.
Here you can change certain GPS options, from metric unit display, download options, and changing the voice and detail of the VZ Navigator voice announcer. Also use this menu to tweak, customize and skin (to a very limited extent) your interface. This is also the location of a "Check for Updates" tool and basic "About" information.
Note that if VZ Navigator is turned on and is in navigation mode (telling you where you are and where you're going), it's getting constant updates to update your location, and is sucking battery life the entire time. Just remember to turn off VZ Navigator when you're done with it. Battery consumption, however, was very acceptable. The Motorola v325's standard battery is a 880 mAh 3.6v Lithium Ion unit. Fairly small and tiny, but so is the v325 itself.

How to avoid phishing

• If you receive an unexpected e-mail saying your account will be shut down unless you confirm your billing information, do not reply or click any links in the e-mail body.
• Before submitting financial information through a Web site, look for the "lock" icon on the browser's status bar. It means your information is secure during transmission.

• If you are uncertain about the information, contact the company through an address or telephone number you know to be genuine.
  
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• If you unknowingly supplied personal or financial information, contact your bank and credit card company immediately.

Creating a replica of an existing Web page to fool a user into submitting personal, financial, or password data.
Phishing is the term coined by hackers who imitate legitimate companies in e-mails to entice people to share passwords or credit-card numbers. Recent victims include Charlotte's Bank of America, Best Buy and eBay, where people were directed to Web pages that looked nearly identical to the companies' sites. The term had its coming out this week when the FBI called phishing the "hottest, and most troubling, new scam on the Internet."It used to be that you could make a fake account on AOL so long as you had a credit card generator. However, AOL became smart. Now they verify every card with a bank after it is typed in.


The term phishing comes from the fact that Internet scammers are using increasingly sophisticated lures as they "fish" for users' financial information and password data.
Hackers have an endearing tendency to change the letter "f" to "ph," and phishing is but one example. The f-to-ph transformation is not new among hackers, either. It first appeared in the late 1960s among telephone system hackers, who called themselves phone phreaks.

The challenges of WiMAX service activation

On cellular networks, the operator retains primary control over the devices operating on its network, but WiMAX will change this.

In traditional cellular networks, the operator retains primary control over the devices operating on its network, with most devices being directly supplied to the subscriber through the operator's retail stores or partners, and pre-provisioned with the operator's software or SIM card.
WiMAX will change this. Subscribers buying a WiMAX-enabled device will be able to choose the device model they prefer and buy it from an operator-independent retailer. Separating the device distribution model from the service delivery model will result in a strong supply chain of devices needed for successful uptake of mobile applications.
This represents a new operating model for the WiMAX operator - one that reduces the pressure to subsidize devices, maintain extensive inventory, and sell non-core devices to subscribers.

A range of devices operating on the network can create complex challenges for customer support staff.
The ability to push firmware to the device enables users to keep their devices updated, reducing customer support workload and cost for the operator. Ideally, device management, including firmware updates and device configuration, should be tied to the plan preferences of each subscriber and to an automated identification of the device.

The ability to set different priority levels for subscribers becomes a requirement. Because WiMAX can support a range of applications such as VoIP, videoconferencing, or video on demand (VoD), the operator needs the ability to set QoS prioritization. Subscribers need to be able to change their profiles and seamlessly download the required configuration settings to their devices.

WIMAX

WiMAX is a wireless digital communications system intended for wireless "metropolitan area networks". WiMAX can provide broadband wireless access (BWA) up to 30 miles (50 km) for fixed stations, and 3 - 10 miles (5 - 15 km) for mobile stations. In contrast, the WiFi/802.11 wireless local area network standard is limited in most cases to only 100 - 300 feet (30 - 100m).



With WiMAX, WiFi-like data rates are easily supported, but the issue of interference is lessened. WiMAX operates on both licensed and non-licensed frequencies, providing a regulated environment and viable economic model for wireless carriers.


WiMAX can be used for wireless networking in much the same way as the more common WiFi protocol. WiMAX is a second-generation protocol that allows for more efficient bandwidth use, interference avoidance, and is intended to allow higher data rates over longer distances.

The IEEE 802.16 standard defines the technical features of the communications protocol. The WiMAX Forum offers a means of testing manufacturer's equipment for compatibility, as well as an industry group dedicated to fostering the development and commercialization of the technology.


WiMax.com provides a focal point for consumers, service providers, manufacturers, analysts, and researchers who are interested in WiMAX technology, services, and products. Soon, WiMAX will be a very well recognized term to describe wireless Internet access throughout the world.

How was the Phoenix Mission born?

In the mid to late ’90s, at Dan Goldin’s insistence, what was then called the Human Exploration program at HQ and the Science Office put together a joint mission to Mars scheduled for launch in 2001. It was a lander mission based on a second copy of the Mars Polar Lander (scheduled for 1998). It had an interesting payload that included instruments selected for relevance to human exploration (including MECA and an oxygen production unit). Dr. Chris McKay had been on the committee that had helped develop the plan for this mission and was a supporter of the mission and the connection to human exploration. Dr. Chris McKay had no direct involvement in any of the instruments selected. None of the instruments on which Dr. Chris McKay was a P.I. or a Co-I. were selected.

When Polar Lander crashed in 1998, NASA HQ understandably canceled the 2001 mission, since it was based on the same lander.

Forward to 2002 and the first call for ideas for a Scout mission to Mars. NASA held a workshop in Pasadena to hear ideas for Scout missions and promised to provide seed funding for a few selected ideas.

Carol Stoker and Dr. Chris McKay thought it would be useful to push the 2001 lander concept. We proposed a Scout mission called Ameba. Here is our summary:
“Ameba is an integrated lander mission that would complement the 2007 lander to investigate the chemical, geological and biological properties of the Martian dust characterize the environment on Mars, and collect data relevant to future robotic and human exploration mission. The existing 2001 lander and its existing soil-analysis instruments form the baseline payload. The following basic questions will be answered by Ameba at low cost and with reduced mission risk: Are there any indications of carbon chemistry and oxidants relevant to life? Are there geological signs that Mars had significant quantities of surface water, or hydrothermal activity? What are the mineralogical and mechanical properties of the dust? How will the soil interact with living organisms? What are the radiation and electrostatic properties of the environment that may be detrimental to life?”

Peter Smith and Mike Hecht were Co-I’s, NASA Ames was the lead institution and would manage the mission, and Dr. Chris McKay was the P.I. At the time of this review of Scout ideas, the word within NASA was HQ would “never let the 2001 lander fly.” Many people thought they were wasting our time trying to reuse that hardware and those instruments.

We were not selected for seed funding at this point, but NASA Ames agreed to provide us with in-house support to develop a proposal for the real Scout competition.

However, soon after the real Scout competition started it was clear that HQ was deciding that essentially all planetary missions would have to be managed by JPL. (In fact the four Scouts selected a year later for further study were all JPL managed). In light of this, Carol and Dr. Chris McKay had a meeting to review the prospects for Ameba and concluded that it had no chance of being selected with an Ames lead. We (correctly) concluded that the only way the 2001 lander would fly again if it was proposed with a highly qualified and experienced member of the original 2001 team as P.I. and with JPL as the managing institution. Peter Smith was the obvious choice. We both know Peter well and we just called him up and had a three-way teleconference, and Peter agreed to be the P.I. Peter did several important things that made the proposal successful: He steered the science rationale into line with the selection criterion combining parts of the 2001 and 1998 landers, he worked effectively with the instrument teams and JPL, and he presented the mission to HQ. The rest, as they say, is history.

Phoenix - Scouting for Water on the Red Planet

Phoenix is a robotic spacecraft that will be used for a space exploration mission to Mars. The scientists conducting the mission will use instruments aboard the Phoenix lander to search for environments suitable for microbial life on Mars, and to research the history of water on the red planet. Phoenix is scheduled to launch in August 2007 and land on Mars in May 2008. The multiagency program is headed by the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, under the direction of NASA. The program is a partnership of universities from the U.S., Canada, Switzerland and Germany; NASA; the Canadian Space Agency; and the aerospace industry. Phoenix will land in the planet’s water-ice-rich northern polar region and use its robotic arm to dig into the arctic terrain.

NASA selected the University of Arizona to lead the Phoenix mission back in August 2003, hoping it would be the first in a new line of smaller, low-cost “Scout” missions in the agency’s exploration of Mars (the cost is about $75 million cheaper than the Spirit/Opportunity rovers, and less than a third the cost of the Viking landers of 1976). The selection was the result of an intense two-year competition with proposals from other institutions. The $325-million NASA award is more than six times larger than any other single research grant in University of Arizona history.

The Mission has a collaborative approach to space exploration. As the very first of NASA’s Mars Scout class, Phoenix combines legacy and innovation in a framework of a true partnership: government, academia and industry. Scout-class missions are led by a scientist, known as a Principal Investigator (PI), whose role is to manage all the scientific data gathered by the spacecraft and lead the mission’s technical and scientific teams.

Pathfinder Airbags in

Phoenix is a partnership of universities, NASA centers and the aerospace industry. The science instruments and operations will the University of Arizona’s responsibility. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, operated under contract by Caltech for NASA, will manage the project and provide mission design and control. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, Colorado, will build and test the spacecraft. The Canadian Space Agency will provide a meteorological station, including an innovative laser-based atmospheric sensor. The co-investigator institutions include Malin Space Science Systems, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Johnson Space Center, Optech Incorporated and SETI Institute, to name just a few.

The lander will land the same way the Viking landers did, slowed primarily by landing rockets, shifting from a recent trend of using air bags for softening landings, as was demonstrated in the Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity missions, as well as Europe’s ill fated probe—the Beagle 2. In 2007, a report was filed at the American Astronomical Society by Washington State University professor Dirk Schulze-Makuch that made a claim that rocket exhaust contaminated the Viking landing sites, potentially killing any life that may have been there. The hypothesis was made long after any modifications to Phoenix could be made without delaying the mission significantly. One of the investigators on the Phoenix mission, NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay merely stated that the report “piqued his interest.” Experiments conducted by Nilton Renno, mission co-investigator from the University of Michigan, and his students, have specifically looked at the how much surface dust will be kicked up when Phoenix lands. It was determined, however, that the robotic arm could reach undisturbed soil, for sampling and analyzing.