RIM says BBM Music now available

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion says its music-sharing application for its popular messaging service is available for downloading in Canada, and in the U.S. and Australia within a day.

BBM Music allows BlackBerry users to select 50 songs from a catalogue of millions of tracks for their personal playlists. BBM users can share those songs from that list with friends who use the instant messaging service, meaning the size of the music library for listeners is limited only by the tastes of their BBM contacts.

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China's unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou 8 blasts off

China's unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou 8 blasted off Tuesday morning, in the latest step in what will be a decade-long effort by the country to place a manned permanent space station in orbit.

The spacecraft took off from a base in the far western city of Jiuquan, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Minutes later, Xinhua cited Chang Wanquan, who leads China's space program, as announcing the launch a success.
China launched its own space station program after being rebuffed in its attempts to join the 16-nation International Space Station, largely on objections from the United States. The U.S. is wary of the Chinese program's military links and the sharing of technology with its chief economic and political competitor.

Earlier Chinese news reports did not specify a launch date for Shenzhou 8. Chinese space officials rarely speak to foreign media.

The Shenzhou 8 will attempt to dock with an experimental module, carrying out maneuvers to couple with the Tiangong 1 module now in orbit. The 8.5-ton, box car-sized Tiangong 1 launched last month.

Following Shenzhou 8, two more missions — at least one of them manned — are to meet up with the module next year for further practice, with astronauts staying for up to one month.

Plans call for launching two other experimental modules for more tests before the actual station is launched in three sections between 2020 and 2022.

At about 60 tons when completed, the Chinese station will be considerably smaller than the International Space Station, which is expected to continue operating through 2028.

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Print decline outpaces online gains for Yellow Media

Advertising in the Yellow Pages and Canpages print directories is drying up at a faster rate, but Yellow Media Inc. (YLO-T0.42-0.01-3.41%) chief executive officer Marc Tellier says it’s only temporary.

“We’re pretty much near or at the peak of the print erosion,” Mr. Tellier told analysts on a conference call Thursday to discuss the company’s third-quarter results.

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Google changes search algorithm, trying to make results more timely

Google is changing the way it looks at the Internet, as the company tries to keep its search engine relevant at a time when Web users want up-to-the-second search results.

The world’s most popular search engine announced on Thursday it will alter some of the algorithms it uses to determine what search results it shows to its users. In a move that affects roughly 35 per cent of all Google searches, the company will now put more emphasis on the most recently-created results – news articles and social media posts that can be just a few minutes old.
The new version of Google’s algorithm will attempt to figure out whether the user’s search query is suited to the most recent results, such as a search for “Occupy Wall Street,” or not, such as a search for a cookie recipe.

“Given the incredibly fast pace at which information moves in today’s world, the most recent information can be from the last week, day or even minute, and depending on the search terms, the algorithm needs to be able to figure out if a result from a week ago about a TV show is recent, or if a result from a week ago about breaking news is too old,” said Amit Singhal, a software engineer who heads up Google’s search-ranking team.

For certain recurring events, such as a company’s quarterly earnings or a presidential election, the search engine will now assume the user is looking for the most recent iteration.

The new algorithm changes are based on a major search engine overhaul Google performed in the summer of 2010. Called Caffeine, the overhaul rearranged the company’s search algorithms to put far more emphasis on scouring the Web faster for more recently-created results, and focusing more on social media.

By a wide margin, Google is still the world’s most popular search engine, and even big-name competitors such as Microsoft’s Bing have not come close to overthrowing the website. However in recent years, social media have largely changed the definition of a Web search. For many users, asking their friends on Facebook or Twitter to recommend a Mexican restaurant in Vancouver is much more useful than performing a blanket search for the topic on Google.

In an attempt to tap in to the social media sphere, Google previously signed a deal to incorporate Twitter results into its main search. However that contract ended this summer, and Google did not renew it – a move that appears to have been prompted in part by the launch of Google’s own competing social media service, Google+. The company will likely try to leverage Google+ content as it once again tries to offer real-time social media results on its core search engine.

While this week’s algorithm changes still don’t incorporate Twitter content, they do ensure that, for about a third of all Google search results, the most recent results will show up near the top of the page. Whether that alone is enough to convince users to choose Google over Twitter and Facebook for real-time results remains to be seen.

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After 520 days in isolation, space researchers emerge from Mars 'mission'

Pale but smiling, an international crew of researchers on Friday walked out of a set of windowless modules after a gruelling 520-day simulation of a flight to Mars.

The all-male crew of three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese slowly emerged from the western Moscow facility, which simulated the confinement, stress and fatigue of interplanetary travel — minus the weightlessness. Dressed in blue track suits emblazoned with the mission emblem, they carefully walked down a metal ladder to a greeting crowd of officials and journalists.
“The crew has completed the experiment,” team leader Alexey Sitev reported to Russian space officials. “The mission is accomplished, the crew is in good health and is ready for new missions.”

Psychologists said long confinement put the team members under stress as they grow increasingly tired of each other's company. They said that psychological conditions can even be more challenging on a mock mission than a real flight because the crew won't experience any of the euphoria or dangers of actual space travel.

Despite that, the crew showed no sign of stress as they walked to microphones to speak before cameras. “We hope that we can help in designing the future missions to Mars,” Frenchman Romain Charles said with a smile.

His Italian-Colombian crewmate Diego Urbina said the crew felt proud to achieve the longest-ever imitation of space flight, so that “humankind can one day greet a new dawn on the surface of distant but reachable planet.”

The crew communicated with the organizers and their families via the Internet, which was delayed and occasionally disrupted to imitate the effects of space travel. They ate canned food similar to that offered on the International Space Station.

The organizers said each crew member will be paid about $100,000, except the Chinese researcher whose reward hasn't been revealed by Chinese officials.

A real flight to Mars is decades away because of huge costs and massive technological challenges, particularly the task of creating a compact and relatively lightweight shield that will protect the crew from deadly space radiation.

NASA is aiming for a nearby asteroid around 2025 and then on to Mars in the 2030s.

Vitaly Davydov, a deputy head of the Russian space agency, said the experiment completed Friday will help pave the way for a real Mars mission. He added that it's not expected until mid 2030s and should be done in close international cooperation.

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NASA finds 90 per cent of potential Earth-killer asteroids

If you’re worried about a killer asteroid wiping out Earth, NASA has some good news.

The U.S. space agency said Thursday it has identified more than 90 per cent of giant, potentially Earth-threatening asteroids, including ones as big as the one thought to have killed the dinosaurs eons ago.
“We know now where most of them are and where most of them are going. That really has reduced our risk” of an impact, said Amy Mainzer of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA researchers also downgraded their estimate of the number of medium-sized asteroids, saying there are 44 per cent fewer than previously believed. The downside is that scientists have yet to find many of these mid-sized asteroids, which could destroy a metropolitan city.

“Fewer does not mean none,” Ms. Mainzer said. “There are still tens of thousands out there that are left to find.”

The updated census comes from data from NASA’s sky-mapping spacecraft named Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, which launched in 2009 to seek out near-Earth objects, galaxies, stars and other cosmic targets.

Unlike previous sky surveys, WISE has sensitive instruments that can pick out both dark and light objects, allowing it to get the most accurate count yet of near-Earth asteroids. The spacecraft takes a small sample of asteroids of varying sizes and then estimates how large the population would be.

For the largest asteroids – bigger than 1,000 metres across – NASA said 911 of the 981 thought to exist have been found. None poses a threat to Earth in the near future, the space agency said.

Previous estimates put the number of medium-sized asteroids at 35,000, but WISE data indicate there are about 19,500 between 100 and 1,000 metres wide. Only about 5,200 have been found and scientists said there is still a lot of work left to identify the potentially hazardous ones.

Results were published in the Astrophysical Journal.

WISE is not equipped to detect the more than one million smallest asteroids that could cause damage if they impact Earth. The spacecraft recently ran out of coolant and is currently in hibernation.

By locating most of the giant asteroids, NASA has fulfilled a goal set by Congress in 1998. More recently, the space agency has been asked to find 90 per cent of asteroids that are at least 140 metres in diameter by 2020.

Don Yeomans, who heads NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office, said that goal is about 35-per-cent complete.

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Astronomer captures image of planet being born

Astronomers have captured the first direct image of a planet being born.

Adam Kraus, of the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy, said the planet is being formed out of dust and gas circling a 2-million-year-old star about 450 light years from Earth.

The planet itself, based on scientific models of how planets form, is estimated to have started taking shape about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago.
Called LkCa 15 b, it's the youngest planet ever observed. The previous record holder was about five times older.

Kraus and his colleague, Michael Ireland from Macquarie University and the Australian Astronomical Observatory, used Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea to find the planet.

“We're catching this object at the perfect time. We see this young star, it has a disc around it that planets are probably forming out of and we see something right in the middle of a gap in the disc,” Mr. Kraus said in a telephone interview.

Kraus presented the discovery Wednesday at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland. Mr. Kraus and Ireland's research paper on the discovery is due to appear in The Astrophysical Journal.

Observing planets while they're forming can help scientists answer questions like whether planets form early in the life of a star or later, and whether they form relatively close to stars or farther away.

Planets can change orbits after forming, so it's difficult to answer such questions by studying older planets.

“These very basic questions of when and where are best answered when you can actually see the planet forming, as the process is happening right now,” Mr. Kraus said.

Other planets may also be forming around the same star. Mr. Kraus said he'll continue to observe the star and hopefully will see other planets if there are in fact more.

Scientists hadn't been able to see such young planets before because the bright light of the stars they're orbiting outshines them.

Mr. Kraus and Mr. Ireland used two techniques to overcome this obstacle.

One method, which is also used by other astronomers, was to change the shape of their mirror to remove light distortions created by the Earth's atmosphere.

The other, unique method they used was to put masks over most of the telescope mirror. The combination of these two techniques allowed the astronomers to obtain high-resolution images that let them see the faint planet next to the bright star.

The astronomers found the planet while surveying 150 young dusty stars. This led to a more concentrated study of a dozen stars.

The star LkCa 15 — the planet is named after its star — was the team's second target. They immediately knew they were seeing something new, so they gathered more data on the star a year later.

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