commercialization
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NASA opens the International Space Station to commercial ventures
The International Space Station (ISS) is open for business. NASA announced today that it plans to commercialize the ISS, so that "U.S. industry innovation and ingenuity can accelerate a thriving commercial economy in low-Earth orbit." According to a press release, NASA will open the space station to private astronauts, as well as commercial product development, testing and manufacturing.
Elpida and Sharp team up for ReRAM in 2013: 10,000x the speed of current NAND flash chips
Want to know where the next breakthrough in mobile technology will come from? Well, if Elpida and Sharp have their way, the answer will be the usual suspect of Japan, where they're working away on new memory chips said to be capable of four orders of magnitude faster performance than the ordinary NAND flash storage of today. Dubbed ReRAM, or Resistive Random Access Memory, this project targets a 2013 date for commercialization and counts the University of Tokyo and Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology among its development team. Details on how such blinding speeds will be reached aren't readily available, but the Nikkei reports power consumption will be down to "virtually zero" when the memory's not in use. So with ReRAM and HP's memristors both set for three years from now, can we schedule NAND's funeral for 2014 or what?
Tilt sensitive tiltBoard module going big for Xbox 360
Although the Wiimote (and the SIXAXIS, under certain conditions) already enjoy the luxuries that tilting can bring, it looks like those sticking with Microsoft's console will now be able to get in on fun as well. Thanks to a partnership with "specialist peripheral makers" Talismoon, the highly-regarded tiltBoard is reportedly getting an commercial makeover as it readies itself for "mass production." Details are admittedly scant right now, but the forthcoming product -- "which will bring tilt sensitivity for the Xbox 360 to the masses" -- is said to be "worth the wait" from its presumably jovial creator. And if you can't visualize just how spiffy it'd be to control your 360 titles without touching the analog or D-pad, be sure to click on through to see what the tiltBoard can do for you.
Quanta planning $200 OLPC for developed nations
A lot of good things can happen when you receive a million orders for your product, such as finding the ability to add speedier hardware, offer up new renditions, and of course, break into new markets. Such is the case with Quanta, as it is reportedly aiming at bringing a device "similar to the OLPC to developed markets when the time is right," and if all goes as planned, it'll hit "for as little as $200." Of course, it was noted that the low-end versions would likely arrive sans a hard drive, with diminutive screens, and utilize open source software, but there's currently not much room to grumble if your laptop budget tops out at two Benjamins. In a quote that certainly made a case for CE-Oh No He Didn't, Michael Wang (Quanta's president) frankly stated that there were "a lot of poor people in developed countries, too," simultaneously dissing those without a large deal of disposable income and mislabeling the millionaire tinkers who'd probably pick one up just to fiddle with. No hints at a release date just yet, but if the sluggish rollout of the OLPCs is a halfway accurate benchmark, we'd guess that this one's a good ways out.[Thanks, Charbax]
