New Hubble Telescope Archive beta interface

The Hubble Legacy Archive (HLA) is designed to optimize science from the Hubble Space Telescope by providing online, enhanced Hubble products and advanced browsing capabilities. The HLA is a joint project of the Space Telescope Science Institute, the European Coordinating Facility, and the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre. Some of the primary enhancements include:

• Putting the data online for immediate access
• Adding a footprint service to make it easier to browse and download images
• Providing more extensive “composite images” (e.g., stacked, color, mosaics)
• Improving absolute astrometry (i.e., from ~ 1-2″ to ~ 0.3″) when there is sufficient overlap with the Guide Star Catalog 2 (GSC2) See FAQ #3
• Developing source lists 6. NICMOS grism extractions (produced at ECF)

We are currently in the Early Data Release phase of the project (e.g., the HLA only includes ~25% of the ACS data), with the more formal Data Release-1 planned for the Winter 2007.

Web 2.0 Pro and Con

Full Text: Keen vs. Weinberger - WSJ.com

This is the full text of a “Reply All” debate on Web 2.0 between authors Andrew Keen and David Weinberger.

Facebook can be bought

TheDeal.com says Facebook will not be sold until 2009 or later but that seems to be a fairly myopic interpretation of the statements they are reporting.  The Scotsman’s view is that Facebook can be had for the right price.  All that remains is the haggling.

If Facebook were to be acquired, Thiel, who is president of hedge fund Clarium Capital Management LLC and managing partner of VC firm Founders Fund Management LLC, estimates it would command a price tag between $7 billion and $10 billion. The market, on the other hand, values the company closer to $3 billion, he said. The estimate is derived from the valuation of New York-based Viacom Inc.’s MTV music television network, which has similar demographics to Facebook, he said.

Oh so predictable…

Duke now says Cisco, not iPhone, caused Wi-Fi snafu

Duke University said yesterday that widely publicized problems with its campus wireless network it had originally blamed on Apple Inc. iPhones had instead been traced to Cisco Systems Inc. hardware. A fix has been applied, the school added.

Google’s wireless gambit

The care and feeding of femtocells requires a heaping helping of electromagnetic spectrum.    Not a new article at this point, but sheds some EM radiation on the whole Ubiquisys deal.

Google Eyes Joining in FCC Spectrum Auction

The usual telecom suspects like AT&T and Verizon will likely be attending the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) auction. But there are strong indications that search engine giant Google will also participate.

UPDATE: another good article…

Could Google kill the cell phone industry? | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

With full leasing ownership of the 700MHz spectrum, Google will try to effectively cripple the cell phone industry. Before you scoff and say this is a bunch of garbage, consider this: Google will offer the $4.6 billion only if the government agrees to the terms above. And perhaps the most compelling of those terms is that Google is requesting “open devices” that will work on the “open networks.”

Forrester: Blogs in the Enterprise? Good, not Great.

There are a lot of info nuggets in this article about Forrester’s update on the value of corporate blogging.  Its being adopted slowly and there is a business case to be made for corporate blogging.

Paradoxically, they assert that it doesn’t seem to live up to the incredible hype of the Enterprise 2.0 fanboys and then go on to say that the investment required is practically nil.  To me that says that the ROI should be nearly infinite

Firms mull over blogs, but doubt business value

Forrester Research Inc. surveyed 275 IT decision makers at U.S. companies with 500 or more employees and found that while 54% of those polled said they are blogging at some level — or at least considering an investment — 46% have no plans to invest in blogs.

…

Forrester asked adopters of blog technology to list the business reasons for using it. Sixty-three percent said they use blogs for internal communications, and 50% use them for internal knowledge and content management. Forty-seven percent said they use blogs for external thought leadership and 46% said they use them for marketing to customers and prospects.

      …

“It doesn’t take a heck of a lot to get up and going,” Young said. “But for most enterprises, blogging is going to require the input of IT along the way, and increasingly IT shops are pushed to the limit. IT doesn’t have time to invest in it.”

Online Chess 2.0

All AJAX and social, courtesy of Ruby on Rails.

64squar.es

Play your friends or find new opponents. Play realtime when they’re online, or correspondence if they’re not. Chat while you play or leave messages. Analyse your games. Optional email notification when your opponent moves.

Google gets into femtocells

Yeah, its easy to scratch your head over this one. Until you recall all those articles on the Google grab for dark fibre and networking plans for the iPhone or the persistent rumors of a Google Phone
or even the fact that GOOG411 saves your average Scotsman about $10 a month off his Sprint bill.  Looking forward to getting one…Thank You Google!

Google invests in U.K. femtocell technology to boost mobile Internet - MarketWatch

Google -alongside Ubiquisys’s original investors Accel Partners, Atlas Venture and Advent Venture Partners -have invested in the U.K. company that develops the femtocell technology.
Ubiquisys makes a femtocell device that boosts 3G phone and data coverage inside buildings, by connecting to the resident’s home broadband network to improve the phone’s reception.

Social datasets

Here’s a social site where you post, plot, swap, mashup, and discuss datasets.  Only in CSV format…no FITS data yet.

Swivel - Draw Conclusions from Data

Swivel is a place where you can upload data, create nice graphs and try to draw wise conclusions from it. “Swivel’s mission is to liberate the world’s data and make it useful so new insights can be discovered and shared.” I happen to know a company with a similar mission (Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful).

Fake Steve Sez: Red Hat will be next.

Fake Steve chimes in on why he thinks Red Hat will be next
in this post at the Secret Diary.

Don’t be afraid, I just want to interoperate

So Microsoft just slowly coils itself around Red Hat (by making deals with everyone else in its space) and gently begins to squeeze. Ubuntu, the other holdout, is probably less worrisome because they’re not really gaining much traction yet and Microsoft feels pretty sure on the desktop. (How else to explain the fact they’re charging four hundred friggin bucks for the top version of Vista? Jesus.)