Android L: Google releasing its new Android KitKat replacement to developers

Google’s much anticipated follow–up to Android KitKat is coming.

Currently dubbed Android L, it was detailed last week during the search giant’s annual I/O developer event in San Francisco.

So, what’s changed? Well, Google seems very keen to shout about its plans.

This is the first time it’s made a similar move to Apple and released an early preview for devs to tinker with. What’s more, it’s made some tweaks that are bound to impress casual and hardcore fans alike.

Stock Android has had a similar design for a few years now and while it’s not badly dated, Google has decided to spruce things up a bit.

It’s using a new design language called ‘Material Design’, which serves up similar looks across its own apps, as well as making the home screen look a lot less cluttered.

The feeling is that the whole thing looks a lot ‘flatter’, something which Apple’s iOS 7 achieved last year.

The aim is simple: To make basic Android look fancier, so manufacturers don’t feel the need to customise it so much, which usually slows down software updates.

Notifications have been given a major new look in Android L.

They’re now readily available from your lock screen, so you can either tap to see what’s what, or swipe to dismiss, without having to open up your phone and delve into a specific app.

What’s more, notifications will pop up at the top of your screen no matter what app is open, so you’ll never miss an important message or email again.

This is called ‘Heads Up’. This subtle change should make Android a lot easier to use.

Notifications will also be ordered according to importance, not alphabetised, with Android knowing which ones you check most frequently.

Android L is up for grabs now.

However, there are plenty of caveats. For starters, you’ll need either a Nexus 5 or a Nexus 7 2013 tablet with Wi-Fi only.

Then you’ll need to snare it from Google’s Android developer site.

Google says that it’s nowhere near finished and that users should be aware this is an early build which could harm their devices.

Still keen? Well, if you download and change your mind, Google says you can easily go back to Android KitKat. But that if you do, all your data will be deleted. Still, you’ll be a pioneer.

Google reckons that tapping in a code or using a swipe pattern to unlock your device slows you down.

True, even if it does keep you safe. So, with Android L, it’s using what it calls ‘trusted environments’ to let you fire up your phone securely without resorting to standard unlocking techniques.

You can use a Bluetooth device to unlock your phone, whenever it’s nearby it’ll work and when it moves out of range it’ll lock down.

This looks especially cool next to Google’s new range of Android Wear smart watches, which can unlock your phone when you’re wearing them.

Well aware that excessive battery drain is becoming a real issue on Android phones, Google has instituted a new battery saving mode with L.

Fire this up and it will switch off data, slow down the device’s clock speed and ensure that everything keeps kicking for longer when you need it most.

A new developer tool also allows app makers to work out just how much battery power their add–ons use and tinker with code to fix it accordingly.

Hopefully this will mean desperately searching out a power source becomes a thing of the past.

Android L phones promise to be much, much snappier than Android KitKat ones.

Why? Because Google is using a new platform to ensure its updated devices run more efficiently and use less memory.

Called ART, this new tool will work automatically with apps and support 64-bit chips.

That means mobile makers can create speedier phones which should mean zipping between apps and firing up games will be lightning fast.

Russian RD-180 Rocket Engine Replacement to Cost US $1.5Bln and take 6 Years

The development of a rocket engine to replace the Russian-made RD-180 used to launch the American Atlas V rocket, would cost $1.5 billion and take up to six years, Bloomberg said Wednesday, citing data from an independent panel advising the Pentagon.

The loss of the RD-180 may have a "significant" impact, as there are few "near-terms options to mitigate" the consequences, according to a study by an independent commission of advisors working in the space sector.

Despite claims by the US Air Force that there are enough engines in reserve for two more years of launches, the lack of new RD-180 imports may lead to launch delays, potentially leading to $5 billion in increased costs through 2017.

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel earlier ordered air force commanders to reconsider the principles of US cooperation with Russia in the military and technical sphere and reduce the US dependence on Russian rocket engines.

US Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall said the Pentagon has no means of replacing the Russian-made rocket engine, which the US uses to launch satellites for military purposes.

It was reported that as a solutions to the problem, the US Air Force could produce a US copy of the engine or increase launches of the Delta IV rocket with a completely different engine.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said earlier that in response to the US sanctions against Russia, Moscow will suspend the export of the RD-180 and NK-33 rocket engines to the United States.

CSA DEXTRE: Space Station Robotic Handyman To Replace Canadarm2 Camera - Video

Dextre, the Canadian robotic handyman on board the International Space Station, has done several repair and maintenance jobs to date, as well as the Robotic Refueling Mission technology demonstration, when he became the first robot to refuel a mock satellite in space.

The space bot is now poised to claim a first for robotkind: self-repair. This animation shows how Dextre will swap two cameras on Canadarm2 and the mobile base, which together form the three main components of Canada's Mobile Servicing System.

Dextre will start by retrieving a faulty camera located near Canadarm2's elbow joint. Since the camera is functional, but produces hazy images, Dextre will move it to a less critical location on the mobile base.

Dextre will then head over to Japan's Kibo module to fetch a camera from the module's transfer airlock, a type of sliding drawer that can be depressurized, where the station's crew will place it for Dextre to retrieve.

Dextre will install the new camera on Canadarm2's elbow joint, where it will provide critical views of the robotic arm's movements.

In addition to repairing and replacing two valuable cameras used for robotic operations, Dextre's task has far-reaching implications for what robots could do in the future.

Technologies for on-orbit robotic servicing, repairing and refueling satellites in space, hold great potential for addressing the issue of space debris, a growing concern for the world's space agencies.

The work done by Dextre today is laying the foundation for the future when one day, robots will be sent to repair, refuel and reposition orbiting satellites.

On-orbit robotic servicing could therefore save satellite operators from the significant costs of building and launching new replacement satellites, and help reduce space debris.

UK MoD works on 'quantum compass' technology to replace GPS

UK scientists say they are three to five years away from creating a new navigation system that would not rely on space-based technologies. A "quantum compass" might replace the US's widely-used GPS, first in military and then on smartphones.

In 2013, the UK announced an investment of Pounds 270 million over five years to research the possibility of incorporating quantum science in new products and services, the Financial Times reports.

According to the FT newspaper, companies including Nokia, Hitachi and Toshiba have established quantum research laboratories in Britain.

The British Ministry of Defense is investing millions of pounds into the "earth-based" technology, which they hope may become an alternative to space-based GPS on board nuclear submarines and ships.

Part of the reason the MoD is so keen to develop a "quantum compass" is that GPS doesn't work underwater.

When submarines dive they navigate using accelerometers to register every twist and turn of the vessel. However, this method is not very accurate.

"Today, if a submarine goes a day without a GPS fix we'll have a navigation drift of the order of a kilometer when it surfaces," says Neil Stansfield from the UK Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down that is working on the project.

Eventually, a "quantum compass" might be available for smartphone users who now use GPS to pinpoint their location.

The DSTL's team was inspired by the Nobel-prize winning discovery that revealed that lasers can trap and cool a cloud of atoms placed in a vacuum to less than a millionth of a degree above absolute zero, to temperatures a billion times colder than outer space.

At their lowest energies, the atoms become the coldest known bodies in the universe. Super-cooled low energy atoms are extremely sensitive to changes in the Earth's magnetic and gravitational field.

If trapped on a small device, their fluctuations can allow scientists to track their movements from great distances away and their locations pinpointed with extreme precision.

So far, the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory has developed a quantum navigation system resembling a "1-meter-long shoe box," according to Stansfield. Scientists are now focusing their efforts on miniaturizing the device, so that it can be used by soldiers and not just on board submarines and ships.

"Quantum TNS [Time, Navigation and Sensing] technologies could bring game-changing advantages to the UK defense sector and support markets measured in billions of pounds, here in the UK and around the world," Stansfield said.

Unlike GPS, the pioneer in the field of pinpointing locations, a "quantum compass" will be interference-proof. The US has repeatedly warned that its GPS is vulnerable to attacks and deliberate disruption.

A "quantum compass," may also be used to create the world's most accurate atomic clocks, scientists say.

NASA: Shuttle Replacement takes shape, the X-37

It's been a long wait—in some ways, more than 50 years—but in April 2010, the U.S. Air Force is scheduled to launch an Atlas V booster from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the newest U.S. spacecraft, the unmanned X-37, to orbit.


The X-37 embodies the Air Force's desire for an operational spaceplane, a wish that dates to the 1950s, the era of the rocket-powered X-15 and X-20.


In other ways, though, the X-37 will be picking up where another U.S. spaceplane, NASA's space shuttle, leaves off.

With a wingspan of 15 feet and a length of 27.5 feet, the X-37 looks like a tiny space shuttle. It has a blunt (though windowless) nose, and one rocket engine bell instead of the shuttle's three.

Two cargo doors open just as the shuttle's do, revealing a four- by seven-foot bay. Like the shuttle, the X-37 was designed for low Earth orbits—in the latter's case, altitudes of 125 to 575 miles. And the craft will fly like a shuttle, reentering the atmosphere with the orbiter's 40-degree nose-high attitude.

After reentry, it will change to a 20-degree nose-down glide and, flying at up to 220 mph, land at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, with Edwards Air Force Base as an alternate.

But as for the period between launch and landing, no one, save for a select few in the Department of Defense, knows exactly what the little Boeing-built spaceplane will do, or for how long.

The Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, which is running the program, says only that the orbital test version, the X-37B, will take a suite of next-generation technologies to orbit and will break new ground in the realm of launch, recovery, and reuse, all with an unmanned twist that the shuttle never offered.

At a 2008 Space Foundation breakfast in Washington, D.C., Gary Payton, deputy under secretary of the Air Force for space programs, recalled the X-37's origins. Payton started the program while at NASA.

"Then, the X-37 was intended to be a testbed for new technologies that could retrofit into the shuttle: predominantly guidance, navigation, and control, and [thermal protection system] technologies," he said. In that era, planners imagined the shuttle carrying the X-37 to space in its cargo bay and releasing it.

Now, with the shuttle's retirement looming, it appears the X-37 will have an independent, post-shuttle life. Payton envisioned such a role for the X-37, saying: "It would be really advantageous in my mind if we had a system you could launch, recover, change out the payload bay quickly, and put into a different orbit, and do all that measured in weeks instead of decades."

David Hamilton, director of the Rapid Capabilities Office, says in an e-mail: "Eventually, I see the unique possibility to operate X-37B more like an aircraft and explore the needs of responsive, reusable spacecraft."

Unlike a satellite, he points out, the spaceplane returns, enabling "detailed inspection and significantly better learning than can be achieved with [a satellite's] remote telemetry alone. Experiments can be modified and reflown, with the objective of shortening the technology maturation timeline."

"The space shuttle was designed to be a very heavy payload lifter, and it has performed that job extremely well," says Mark Lewis, a University of Maryland hypersonics expert who recently completed a four-year appointment as chief scientist for the Air Force. "But you don't need to send a Mack truck into space when a Toyota Celica will do."

The question is: Will do what? Lewis, whose enthusiastic speech barely keeps pace with his mind, is happy to talk about the skin-deep similarities between the shuttle and the X-37. ("A lot of the basic reentry physics is treated the same way," he says. "Blunt configurations. The shuttle has very blunt leading edges.") But when he's asked about anything more than the X-37's aerodynamics, he clams up.

So does everyone else. "While some aspects of the…program have been designated as unclassified and been released to the public; information regarding specific technical and performance capabilities will not be released at this time," writes David Hamilton.

"Hide it in plain view," says one observer of the Air Force's practice of letting out just a little about the X-37, enough to make it seem like it will never be more than a research tool. Read More....