Vint Cerf -- Engadget

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NASA's interplanetary Internet tests a success, Vint Cerf triumphs again

by Thomas Ricker posted Nov 19th 2008 at 5:25AM

NASA is reporting the first successful tests of its Deep Space Network modeled after Earth's own Internet. Instead of using TCP/IP, however, the interplanetary communication network relies upon DTN (Disruption-Tolerant Networking) co-developed by none other than Google's Vinton Cerf. As such, NASA's network does not assume a continuous end-to-end connection -- if a link is lost due to solar storms or a planetary eclipse, the communication node will store the information until the connection is re-established. So, what's the big deal you rightly ask, after all, we've been (purposely) transmitting data to and from space for a half-century. As Leigh Torgerson, manager of NASA's DTN Experiment Operations Center explains it:

"In space today, an operations team must manually schedule each link and generate all the commands to specify which data to send, when to send it, and where to send it. With standardized DTN, this can all be done automatically."

Testing of the Deep Space Network began in October with twice-weekly communications between NASA's Epoxi spacecraft (on a mission to rendezvous with Comet Hartley 2) and nine ground-based nodes meant to simulate Mars landers, orbiters, and operation centers. The International Space Station is scheduled to join the testing next summer. Although the nature of the data transmitted wasn't specified, we can only presume that it was laced with Google ads for Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong.

Google phone rumors shot down -- for the moment

by Paul Miller posted Mar 21st 2007 at 10:26AM

We were afraid the fun couldn't last long, and indeed a Google bossman has come forward in an attempt to quell rumors of a Google phone. Richard Kimber, Google's South-East Asia managing director of sales and operations, says that Google is obviously investing in the software side of things, but that it has no interest in entertering the crowded handset market. "At this point in time, we are very focused on the software, not the phone." This echoes Vint Cerf's statments from earlier this month, who said "becoming an equipment manufacturer is pretty far from our business model." Of course, while both of these guys are confirming that mobile software, services and ads are in the works, neither one has come straight out and denied an actual device, or taken steps to contradict Isabel Aguilera's statements about a low-end phone in the works -- but it's pretty clear that these guys are at least implying we won't be seeing such a device for a while yet.