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Paul Allen's Stratolaunch is reportedly shutting down
Paul Allen's space company, Stratolaunch Systems Corporation, is reportedly closing down its operations. According to Reuters, the company is shutting up shop, but it's also exploring the possibility of selling its assets and intellectual property. A spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied the report, telling Engadget that "Stratolaunch remains operational" and that it "will provide an update when there is news to share."
Sonar drone discovers long-lost WWII aircraft carrier USS Hornet
The late Paul Allen's research vessel, the Petrel, has found another historic warship at the bottom of the ocean. In the wake of an initial discovery in late January, the expedition crew has confirmed that it found the USS Hornet, an aircraft carrier that played a pivotal role in WWII through moments like the Doolittle Raid on Japan and the pivotal Battle of Midway. It was considered lost when it sank at the Battle of Santa Cruz in October 1943, but modern technology spotted it nearly 17,500 feet below the surface of the South Pacific Ocean, near the Solomon Islands.
Stratolaunch successfully tests a core component of its rocket engines
Stratolaunch has successfully tested a key component of its hydrogen-fuelled rocket engine. The company fired the pre-burner last Friday at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. In contrast to its long-gestating massive aircraft, which has yet to take flight, it raced through the charted development of the component in the span of a year (as promised).
Bill Gates remembers Paul Allen: 'I will miss him tremendously'
Yesterday, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen passed away at the age of 65 following a battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and today, Bill Gates shared a few thoughts on the man he says changed his life. "When I think about Paul, I remember a passionate man who held his family and friends dear," Gates wrote in a blog post. "I also remember a brilliant technologist and philanthropist who wanted to accomplish great things, and did."
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen dies from cancer at 65
It's a sad day for the technology world, as Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has died at the age of 65 due to complications from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The tech pioneer had been grappling with the cancer for years after being first diagnosed in 1982 and receiving treatment for it in 2009, but announced that it had returned on October 1st. He leaves behind his sister and had no children. His influence, however, will likely be felt for a long time to come.
Stratolaunch's new satellite carriers include a reusable space plane
Paul Allen's Stratolaunch is only just starting to make serious progress on its massive aircraft, but it's already thinking about its future beyond that enormous machine. The company has unveiled a new family of launch vehicles that can carry a wide range of payloads to orbit. Most notably, it's in the "design study" phase for a completely reusable space plane (shown at far right). Stratolaunch won't even predict when the machine would be ready, but it would initially focus on cargo launches and carry crew in later revisions.
Paul Allen puts $40 million towards combatting illegal fishing
Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen is working on a system that will monitor the oceans for illegal fishing, reports Bloomberg. It's called SkyLight and Allen is putting $40 million towards the project. Currently, the system is being tested in Palau and Gabon, but it's set to be more widely available early next year.
The world’s largest aircraft had a successful engine test
Back in May, we reported that the world's largest aircraft, the Stratolaunch, had finally left its (giant) hanger and was preparing for tests. This week, the first of those was completed. All six of the massive rocket-launching plane's turbofan engines were turned on and tested.
Microsoft co-founder's remote vehicles find a legendary WWII ship
The USS Indianapolis played an important role in WWII history, including the delivery of parts for the atomic bombs that would eventually drop on Japan. However, it met a grim fate: not only did a Japanese submarine sink it near the end of the war, but its wreck has remained elusive despite multiple expeditions over the past 72 years. Technology just provided some resolution, though. A team piloting Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's research vessel, the R/V Petrel, has found the wreck of the Indianapolis at the bottom of the Philippine Sea. The discovery was helped by a mix of better information and the equipment aboard the Petrel itself.
The world’s largest aircraft prepares for testing
We last heard about the Stratolaunch in August 2015, when Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's company Stratolaunch Systems announced plans for test flights with the massive airplane meant to help launch satellite-bearing rockets more efficiently. Those test flights apparently didn't happen, but Allen did tweet a picture of the huge aircraft coming out of its equally gigantic hangar today for "fuel testing."
Microsoft co-founder's academic search engine adds neuroscience
Researchers, scientists and academics around the world publish roughly 2.5 million scientific papers each year, on top of a backlog of more than 50 million papers dating back to 1665. Plus, the rate at which researchers publish these academic papers keeps rising, a la Moore's Law. It's impossible for scientists to read every paper published in their fields, and searching for a specific study can be a daunting task. Enter: Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder and leader of the non-profit Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. The Allen Institute's latest effort is Semantic Scholar, a scientific-paper search engine powered by machine learning and other artificial intelligence systems.
Largest plane in the world to perform test flights in 2016
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen started planning to build the largest plane in the world in 2011, along with several partners -- including Elon Musk. Now, that plane (called Stratolaunch) is under construction at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, and is expected to undergo testing as soon as 2016. Allen's company, Stratolaunch Systems, isn't building an oversized aircraft just so it can get in the Guinness Book of World Records, though: its primary goal is to perform air launches of satellite-carrying rockets.
Paul Allen takes a look at Windows 8, finds his ex-workmates mostly doing well
When Paul Allen isn't busy writing memoirs or suing everyone, he's... providing insightful operating system commentary? While "software reviewer" isn't normally part of his job description, Allen has seen fit to dissect Microsoft's Windows 8 interface and learn how the company he co-founded is getting along without him. It's coping gracefully, thank you. The industry pioneer has decided the OS has a lot of promise for tablets, where the touch interface and legacy Windows support could provide the best of both worlds. He doesn't spare his former coworkers from criticism, though: he warns that the split between the Windows 8-style UI and the traditional desktop is potentially confusing, notes the absence of useful Android and iOS features like touch-friendly app folders, and doesn't find the conventional Windows interface very practical with fingers alone. It's hard to ignore the soft spot Allen likely has towards the platform he fostered for years, but his preview still offers a unique perspective on what many of us will see in three weeks.
Paul Allen-backed Stratolaunch Systems promises flexible, low-cost access to space
When Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, legendary aerospace designer Burt Rutan and private spaceflight proponent Elon Musk team up on something, folks are bound to pay attention -- especially when they're promising nothing short of a "revolution in space transportation." At the center of that ambitious goal is a new company backed by Allen, Stratolaunch Systems, and a massive new aircraft to be designed and built by Rutan's Scaled Composites. If all goes as planned, it will be the size of two 747s (with a wingspan greater than the length of a football field), and it will be able to carry a 120 foot long rocket built by Musk's SpaceX to an altitude suitable for launch into orbit. Stratolaunch hopes to do that for a "fraction" of the cost of current launches, and it intends to eventually send everything from satellites to manned capsules into space. As you might expect, however, all of that is still in the early stages. According to Spaceflight Now, Stratolaunch currently employs around 100 people (it says it plans a "significant ramp-up"), and complete details on the aircraft itself remain a bit murky (intentionally so, according to Allen). Flight testing is currently slated for the "2015 timeframe," though, with the first launch expected a year later. What's more, while it's not clear how much Allen plans to invest in the project, he has managed to attract some other big names to the project; former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin has joined as a board member, and Gary Wentz, a former chief engineer at NASA, will serve as President and CEO. Head on past the break for a teaser video of what they have planned.
SETI comes back from the financial dead, gets a check from Jodie Foster
Roswell devotees, dry those tears -- the search for alien overlords frenemies is back on. Four months after going into financial "hibernation," SETI's Allen Telescope Array has been temporarily resuscitated thanks to an infusion of publicly raised funds from the SETIStars program, and Ms. Jodie Foster. The web campaign for those-who-believe raised over $200,000 in just 45 days, enough cash to get the Paul Allen-funded dishes scanning the skies for at least five more months. Tom Pierson, the institute's CEO, is hoping to secure long-term funding for the project from the U.S. Air Force, which could use the array during the daytime "to track orbital objects that otherwise might pose a threat to the International Space Station and other satellites." However Pierson manages to keep the fleet of skyward-facing ears afloat, one thing's for sure -- the truth is out there and tracking it's a hustle.
Paul Allen lawsuit against Apple and others delayed
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has been stymied in his attempt to sue Apple, Google and others for patent infringement. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman delayed proceedings so the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office can reexamine the patents in the case. The USPTO will take a closer look at the patents and decide if they were granted properly. Often when this happens, the patents will be rejected or narrowed in scope; two possible decisions that could have a major impact on the outcome of this case. This process can also be long and drawn out and will test Allen's resolve to stay committed to this case.
SETI suspends search for alien life, E.T. weeps in the silent dark of space
Our progress toward intergalactic fellowship has suffered another blow, as SETI suspended operations of its Allen Telescope Array. Funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the array is a collection of radio dishes that scan the skies for signs of life; now it'll be in "hibernation" mode until 2013, when the institute's new round of funding begins. SETI hopes to raise $5 million to bring the Array back online before then, while it continues to use other telescopes around the world, including the Hubble Space Telescope. The budget woes are especially bitter given the number of recently identified alien planets – NASA's Kepler mission found 1,235. If any of them are broadcasting the next Wow! signal, let's hope it doesn't fall on deaf earthling ears.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen: Steve Jobs is "monomaniacal"
I doubt Steve Jobs will regard being called monomaniacal as an insult. My dictionary defines the word as 'An inordinate or obsessive zeal or interest in a single thing or subject." That sounds pretty much like the Apple co-founder and CEO. The comments from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen came in an interview with The Sunday Times, where he also praised Apple's almost unbelievable turnaround since Jobs returned to the company in 1997. The full article is behind a paywall, but the Guardian quotes it here. There's a lot more of interest in Allen's recently-published autobiography, Idea Man. One passage from the book that will make Apple fans take notice is this one quoting Bill Gates in the mid-nineties: "[The competition] can be taken. But the only way we're going to take them is to study them, know what they know, do what they do, watch them, watch them, watch them. Look for every angle, stay on their shoulders, clone them, take every one of their good ideas and make it one of our good ideas."
Steve Jobs thought Noah Wyle did a "fantastic job" playing him in Pirates of Silicon Valley
Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen has a new book out titled Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft. In it you can find all sorts of muckraking that publishers love to have in a biography that they paid too large of an advance on. The book has already generated a lot of internet talk based on the fact that it has supposedly created a rift between Allen and Bill Gates. But besides Microsoft drama, the book also reveals a few interesting tidbits about Steve Jobs. In the book, Allen remembers an incident between Steve Jobs and an employee, which demonstrates what a jerk Jobs is, according to Allen. In Allen's retelling, both he and Bill Gates drove down to meet with Steve Jobs and Apple developer Andy Hertzfeld for a demo of the first Mac. But when the four sat down around the Mac and it promptly froze, Jobs was quick to unleash his anger and belittlement on Hertzfeld: "What the fuck is going on?" [Jobs] snarled at Hertzfeld, who'd probably been up all night getting things ready and was now trying to shrink under the table. "These guys came all the way down here to see this thing and this is the best we can do? This is the best we can do? We get thirty seconds and a frozen screen? What the fuck is wrong with you?" Allen goes on to say that he had forgotten about the incident until he saw it portrayed in Pirates of Silicon Valley years later. Allen says that the movie, where Jobs was played by Noah Wyle, portrayed Jobs as a "mean-spirited jerk," something Jobs apparently had no problem with. Next time Allen saw Jobs, he asked him if he liked the movie. Jobs' response: "I thought the guy who played me did a fantastic job." [via BusinessInsider]
Paul Allen compares working with Bill Gates to 'being in hell' (video)
Paul Allen doesn't give many interviews, but Microsoft's famously eclectic co-founder recently decided to sit down with 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl, to discuss his juicy new memoir, The Idea Man. It's a book peppered with old stories of Allen's early days as a programmer, when he and Bill Gates would spend their days searching for discarded code in dumpsters and building software for the original Altair computer. But the memoir's most intriguing (and controversial) revelations revolve around Allen's personal and professional relationship with Gates, whom he described to Stahl as a gifted businessman with a penchant for being a total jerk. According to Allen, Gates would regularly engage in testy shouting matches with his Microsoft brethren, and wouldn't hesitate to sling "personal verbal attacks" against anyone who dared to disagree with him. Allen says he tolerated Gates' explosions, for the most part, even though he desperately wanted to tell him that "working with you is like being in hell." The two hit a particularly rough patch after Gates allegedly plotted to squeeze Allen out of the company, not long after he was diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma -- an incident that spurred Allen to leave Microsoft, shortly thereafter. Gates, for his part, hasn't commented on Allen's tell-all, nor, apparently, has he even discussed it with his former partner. The next time the two men sit down for a chat, however, Allen says he expects a "heated discussion." Naturally. You can watch the interview after the break, along with a glimpse at some of Allen's most jaw-dropping toys.
