Trevor Floyd

In the days leading up to NASA's crashing of two halves of a space probe into the moon, doubters turned to the Internet to express fears that the lunar bombing would have negative effects on the Earth. In a quest to find out if there's water on the moon , NASA sent two separated halves of a spacecraft crashing into a permanently dark crater on the south pole of the moon this morning. Scientists and astronomers were quick to step forward to refute any rumors and quell concerns, but rumors are still circulating online. The crashes were meant to send up a huge debris plume that could be measured and analyzed for evidence of water ice hiding in the cold, dark crater.

But detractors were quick to post online warnings about possible negative effects of the experiment. With NASA still hopeful to one day create a viable human outpost on the moon , it would be helpful for anyone there to find water rather than haul it up from Earth. Amy Ephron, an author and screenwriter, wrote an article for the Huffington Post earlier this week, questioning NASA for taking the risks associated with sending two spacecraft crashing into the surface of the moon. "Who did the risk assessment? Ephron was far from alone in her concerns. I mean, what if something goes wrong?" asked Ephron. "I could say something scientifically lame and ask, 'What if it gets thrown off its axis?' or something funny and suggest something (that I actually sort of believe), like, 'What if it somehow throws off the astrology?' Or that we're not risking - as we have the earth with continued experiments of this kind - sending the solar system out of balance.

The Chicago Surrealist Movement posted an online petition , which was signed by 560 people, calling for NASA to halt the bombing of the moon. Faith Vilas, director of the MMT Observatory , said she's been amazed by such negative reactions to the mission. And people against the LCROSS mission started their own Twitter presence with @helpsavethemoon . While some people said they felt NASA's plan was simply too aggressive an attack on the Earth's orbiter, some claimed that the impacts would change the Earth's tides, throw the moon off its axis or even affect women's menstrual cycles. There's simply no danger, she added. "The moon is impacted by nature and meteors all the time," said Vilas. "Nature has done much more damage to the moon than we just did. What we did was nothing. We were not likely to have any effect on the moon at all.

We didn't have much of an impact at all." Bruce Betts, director of projects at The Planetary Society , said in an email to Computerworld that this morning's crashes will have no negative impact on the moon or the Earth. "The spacecraft are far too tiny compared to the moon, in fact, to have any significant effect on the moon's orbit or dynamics," he added. "The impact might be likened to a gnat hitting the windshield of a truck."

It's hard to imagine NASA could face more challenges than the ones it stared at in October. On the cloudier side, the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plan Committee said NASA faces significant challenges in continuing the manned space flight program. On the good side, the space agency had a couple major successes first with the NASA LCROSS satellites successfully crashing into the moon looking for water and then the Ares X rocket launch that went off without a hitch at the end of the month. Then the GAO said NASA network faces myriad security problems.

That was the conclusion of the Augustine Review of United States Human Space Flight Plan Committee report delivered to the White House today. Here's a look at those NASA stories and more from October: NASA's future: Now the space battle beginsWhen it comes down to it, NASA is the most accomplished space organization in the world but its human spaceflight activities are at a tipping point, primarily due to a mismatch of goals and money. The report's 157-pages worth of findings will now be debated and in the end, dictate the future of NASA and space flight operations. The short test flight - about 2 minutes - will provide NASA an early opportunity to look at hardware, models, facilities and ground operations associated with the mostly new Ares I launch vehicle. NetworkWorld Extra:12 mad science projects that could shake the world10 NASA space technologies that may never see the cosmos "Frickin fantastic" launch of NASA Ares X rocket NASA saysWith a hiss and roar NASA's Ares X rocket blasted into the atmosphere this at about 11:33 am EST taking with it a variety of test equipment and sensors but also high hopes for the future of the US space agency. NASA network security torchedWhile NASA may be focused on keeping its manned space flight plans intact, apparently it has seriously neglected the security of its networks.

NASA teams with Air Force to step up commercial space paceAs it looks to significantly reshape its future, NASA today said it would partner with the US Air Force Research Laboratory to develop a technology roadmap for use of reusable commercial spaceships. Watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office issued a 53-page report pretty much ripping the space agency's network security strategy stating that NASA has significant problems protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the information and variety of networks supporting its mission centers. The study of reusable launch vehicle, or RLVs will focus on identifying technologies and assessing their potential use to accelerate the development of commercial reusable launch vehicles that have improved reliability, availability, launch turn-time, robustness and significantly lower costs than current launch systems, NASA stated. NASA spacecraft crash into the moonNASA' Lunar CRater Observing and Sensing Satellites (LCROSS) took dead aim and crashed into the moon around 7:31 am ESD. Watching the results on NASA TV, scientists were pleased with the impact of the two satellites. The study results will provide roadmaps with recommended government technology tasks and milestones for different vehicle categories. The impact of the $80 million LCROSS satellites into the moon was to create what the space agency hopes is an ice-filled a debris plume that can be analyzed for water content.

The space agency said on Oct. 15 it will start a series of 17 flights to study changes to Antarctica's sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets. NASA takes ice hunt Earth-boundWhile NASA is crashing into the moon to look for ice, it's also looking for the frozen stuff here on Earth, only in a much more conventional way. The flights are part of what NASA calls Operation Ice Bridge, a six-year project that is the largest airborne survey ever made of ice at Earth's polar regions. The Apophis asteroid is approximately the size of two-and-a-half football fields and updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036, for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million, NASA stated. NASA says 200-yard long asteroid will miss EarthNASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid known as Apophis and now say it has only a very slim chance of banging into Earth. NASA Ares rocket battles lightning strikesNASA's Ares I-X test rocket has been delayed today in part because of the number of lightning strikes in the area - 154 since last evening, NASA said.

That's because NASA built an enormous lightning protection system at the Kennedy Space Center that will not only protect people and equipment but collects strike information for analysis by launch managers. While NASA can't control the weather, the Ares launch pad and surrounding area as well protected from lighting strikes as can be.

I just got back from the Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles and I am very excited. The attendees included developers, end users, graphic artists, small businesses … you name it. This event attracted some 6,000 people, each paying between $595 to attend for a single day and $1,695 for late registration to attend all three days.

Adobe brings Flash apps to the iPhone The event occupied the West Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center, every conference room and theater in the complex, and took over the enormous Nokia Theater opposite the LACC for various presentations. There was a lot to be impressed about and one of the technologies getting a lot of attention was augmented reality (AR). AR is the technique of overlaying graphics on an image of the real world such that the graphics enhance and recontextualize the scene. In short, it's a massive show and, considering the harsh economic times, an amazing success that underscores the vibrancy and scope of the Adobe market. AR has been used for years in the military in heads-up displays in fighter aircraft where the pilot's view is enhanced with markers highlighting other aircraft (note that data such as airspeed that is also shown on heads-up displays is not, strictly speaking, augmented reality as it is not an integrated part of the visualize context of the scene). The connection between the Adobe conference and AR is that developers favor the use of Flash content to provide the visual overlay for an AR scene. Alliban, who works for Skive, a London digital agency, which does some amazing work, showed a number of his AR projects that were visually stunning as well as one project that, should you have doubts about the business potential of AR, should change your mind: The USPS Virtual Box Simulator. The whole Flash model combined with the impressive 3D features now available in a number of Adobe products (check out the 3D functions built-in to Photoshop CS4 Extended – amazing!). At the conference, a great presentation by Jesse Freeman and James Alliban showcased some impressive examples that explored both the artistic and business potential of augmented reality.

Developed by AKQA, an international digital agency, the Virtual Box Simulator is a Web application that lets you check whether something you want to ship will fit in one of the USPS flat rate shipping boxes as well as order real, physical boxes. You then print out a "target" – a black and white image that the AR application uses to determine the scene geometry. To use the Virtual Box Simulator you need a Web cam pointing at a table. When you hold this target so the camera can see it, the target is displayed on your computer screen is overlaid with a semi-transparent USPS box - move and rotate the target and the virtual box also moves simultaneously. You can change box sizes and alter the transparency of the virtual box and, when satisfied, use the same Web application to order your shipping supplies. If you can lay the target (and therefore the virtual box) on the table and place the thing to be shipped on the target it is very easy to whether the thing actually fits the box.

While you might say that if you had the actual boxes to hand you could easily test the real fit and therefore the Virtual Box Simulator is more for show that misses the point. Augmented Reality looks like it is about to take off, big time. The point is that this is actually useful and useable and applies to the real world, it isn't just an art project or a test of the technology. Not only are people talking about the concept and producing useful examples, but the marketplace is making the building process easier with libraries that combine Flash with AP such as FLARToolKit and the library wrapper FLARManager. I expect to see a lot more augmented reality not only at next year's Adobe Max conference but in the real world as well.

One unmistakable trend at this year's DEMOfall show is the number of Web sites and applications that rely to some degree on crowdsourcing. 13 hot products from DEMOfall '09 Crowdsourcing – a buzzword loosely defined as giving large crowds of users the ability to collaboratively create or change content on Web sites or applications – was made popular by open-source encyclopedia Wikipedia and has since become a staple of Web 2.0 applications. So why does crowdsourcing have such an appeal for developers? "With all due respect it's because developers are lazy," laughs Micello founder and CEO Ankit Agarwal. "When I crowdsource it means that I don't have to do the work to get data myself." But crowdsourcing does have perks beyond getting other people to do your work for you. Among the new crowdsourcing technologies to debut at DEMO this fall are Article One Partners' AOP Patent Studies, an open-source enterprise service that employs an online community of patent advisors to research patent claims; Waze, a mobile application that can be used to update traffic conditions in real time; TrafficTalk, a mobile application that is similar to Waze but also lets users provide traffic updates simply using their voice rather than typing into their mobile phone; Micello, a mobile app that aims to be the Google Maps of indoor spaces; and Answers.com, a Web site that combines established reference resources and crowdsourcing to create a comprehensive information database.

Some crowdsourcing developers say if you can create an application that meets a common need and gives people a real stake for getting involved, then it can go a long way toward growing your product's popularity. It's a shared pain of being frustrated by traffic jams and the like, but our goal is to resolve that pain and to minimize the wait during commutes." Greenfield says that while larger crowds are obviously better for an application such as TrafficTalk, the application can be relatively successful even if only two people who trust each other are using it. TrafficTalk founder Larry Greenfield, whose product is still currently in its alpha testing phase, says that he has found fertile crowdsourcing ground in the form of frustrated commuters during tests he has run of his software. "For us, crowdsourcing has to create a sense of community among our users," he says. "There has to be something that binds people together. After all, he notes, if one friend who shares a commute route with another friend can notify that friend of a traffic accident using TrafficTalk, the application will have served its purpose. Demo's biggest stars of all time Answers.com, on the other hand, is a Web site that really does require massive participation if it is to meet its lofty goal of becoming a central hub for people seeking answers to their queries.

Even so, he says the application needs around a dozen or so people to really reach its potential. Right now, the Web site lets users ask questions whose answers are partially provided by information culled from licensed professional encyclopedias and dictionaries and partially provided by user-generated Wiki-style content. This past August, for instance, Answers.com got around 45 million unique visitors. "Crowdsourcing for us really starts to work when you get to a certain scale," he explains. "Right now we get 45,000 new questions asked each day and then about one third of those are answered every day. Answers Corp. founder and CEO Robert Rosenschein says that as the Wiki portion of the Web site has grown over the past year, participation has snowballed to the point where the company doesn't have to work as hard to promote itself. Those answers are the most valuable thing we have even though some are more detailed and some less so… When you start to get that sort of scale it just sort of happens.

As Rosenschein acknowledges, crowdsourced answers are far more likely to contain factual errors than are answers taken from professional sources. The more new questions you get, the more new answers you get." Of course, the paradox of success is that the more popular your crowdsourcing site is, the more likely it will become the target of vandals. This is why, he says, it's so important to foster a tight community that takes pride in keeping the site accurate and will work quickly to clean up any vandalism. Because the service uses its online community to research the validity of patent claims – a time-consuming task if there ever was one – it pays money to users who are the first to come up with a correct solution to whether a patent is valid or not. For AOP Patent Studies, developing a sense of community is also important, but it's not the only incentive it uses to push its users toward greater accuracy.

It basically works like this: a company comes to AOP Patent Studies and pays them to look into a patent claim. The first two people to get results get paid a portion of the money. The Web site then throws the case to its online community for research. Still, Article One Partners CEO Cheryl Milone thinks that monetary incentive can't help your crowdsourcing site if you don't first develop a strong sense of cooperation among users. "There really has to be a sense of camaraderie and loyalty," she says. "Whether people are brought to the site because they know a lot about a particular technology or because they feel strongly that the patent system needs to be strengthened, it's the feedback they get from the community that keeps them coming back and is in itself compensation for their efforts."

Fake security software "SpywareGuard" and "AntiVirus" are said to be the top two scareware programs out of about 250 fake security programs detected, according to a Symantec report. According to the Symantec report: "There are two prevalent ways in which rogue security software can be installed on a user's computer; either it is downloaded and installed manually by a user after he or she has been tricked into delivering the software as legitimate, or it is knowingly installed onto a user's computer, such as when a user visits a malicious Web site designed to automatically download and install illegitimate applications." Some scams even return e-mail messages to the victim with a receipt for purchase that includes a serial number and a valid functioning customer-service phone number. Symantec examined evidence of what it could detect online for a six-month period, how it was propagating, and what fake security software programs were costing, says Mark Fossi, editor of the report. "Sometimes it's sold as a complete security suite," he said, adding, "it mostly does nothing." Rogue security software is often called scareware because these fake antivirus and registry cleaners can convince the victim to purchase based on flagging screens warning them about threats that don't exist outside the scareware itself.

Distribution networks are rampant in which "affiliates" earn money to ensure the rogue security software is circulated, such as Traffic. Affiliates are paid 55 cents for each U.S. computer, 52 cents for a U.K. computer, 5 cents for Norway or Mexico, but only a penny in many other countries. Coverter.biz, where affiliates are paid based on numbers of computers they manage to get malware on to enable the sale of fake security software. SpywareGuard2008, said to be made by Pandora Software, was called the most prevalent rogue security software for the time period investigated, and its price started at $49.95. Customers often pay for scareware with credit cards, and the report notes, "Since the payment services used are often legitimate, there is constant threat that the payment services provider will discover that its service is used for fraud." But "scammers also benefit from phishing personal information for users who register rogue applications." This could include the credit card number and payment details that can be sold into the underground economy for further abuse. About half the servers for scareware are in the United States, the report says, with Germany holding 11% and Ukraine 5%. Other countries are said to include Canada, the United Kingdom, China, Turkey, Netherlands, Italy and Russia, making it very global in scope.

Internet-enabled TV sets could see wider adoption in the next few years as viewers get comfortable with the idea of running widgets on TV screens, according to a study released by Ernst & Young on Thursday. TV widgets are designed to pull selective content from the Internet to complement TV watching. Widgets - or mini-applications - are already being used in devices like mobile phones and computers to run light applications, and those applications could reach TV sets, the analyst firm said in the study. For example, users can view weather information on TV or buy products advertised on TV from online stores.

Web-connected TV shipments could total less than 500,000 in 2009, but top 6 million by 2013, E&Y said in the study, citing statistics from Parks Associates. Many consumers consider it an "appealing" idea to mesh TV with information from the Internet, according to the study. Widgets could also be the glue that brings together Internet and TV content. Many Web sites and technology companies are developing an ecosystem to bring content from the Internet and TV together. Broadcast TV is already competing with the Web for viewership, and widgets could facilitate content searches through both mediums, giving more entertainment options to viewers. Myspace.com, for example, has developed a widget that blends TV with its social-networking offerings.

Users don't need to rely on a browser to access MySpace content. TV watchers could exchange e-mail messages or browse photos on MySpace by activating a widget at the bottom of the TV screen. TVs and chips, for instance, are also being developed to build Web-enabled TVs. Sony, Samsung and LG have said select flat-panel high-definition TV models would be able to run widgets or download movies from online entertainment services like Netflix. Intel is also working with companies like CBS and Cinemanow to bring widgets to TVs. Web-enabled TV has struggled over the past 15 years since Time Warner Cable launched the iTV service in Orlando, E&Y said. Intel last week announced the CE4100 media processor, which enables the use of Internet and multimedia applications on TVs, Intel said.

Ever since, it has seen many iterations, with companies like AOL, BSkyB, RespondTV, Hewlett-Packard and Apple trying to bring the Internet to TV through devices like set-top boxes or adapters. Widgets for TV use also need to be adopted by television programming and cable operators. The success of widgets depends on applications that users will want to have on their TVs. For example, one-click access to on-demand content from online movie stores is well-suited for widgets. The operators will look to monetize widgets by developing an ad sales model around it, which could face some challenges, the study found. Conflicting advertising could also appear on a TV screen and widget at the same time, which could affect ad sales models.

For example, viewers could migrate their attention from TV shows to widgets, which could affect the ratings of a program.

Apple again used its software update tool to push a program that was previously not installed on a PC, according to Computerworld tests early Monday. Apple's Software Update for Windows - a utility most often installed on PCs when users download iTunes - was offering something called "iPhone Configuration Utility" to Windows users, even to machines that have never connected to an iPhone. Later in the day, however, Apple removed the software from the update list. Popular Windows blogger Ed Bott first reported on ZDNet that the tool was included in new updates.

The tool, chimed in Simon Bisson of itexpertmag.com , is actually an enterprise-grade tool for network administrators, who use it to create and deploy device profiles so users can securely connect to a company's Exchange mail servers. Computerworld confirmed that the 22MB download was offered to PCs, including those running Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) and Vista SP2, that had never been used to synchronize an iPhone. According to Bisson , the iPhone Configuration Utility also adds the open-source Apache Web server software to the PC. "The thing with that iPhone config utility is that it's an enterprise tool for building device profiles. Apple has been criticized in the past for using its software updating service to push unwanted software. It's not for consumers!" Bisson said on Twitter. Last year, for example, the company came under fire for offering Safari for Windows to users who had not installed the application, going so far as to pre-check the program so that users who simply accepted the default downloads received the browser.

Later, Apple quietly changed Software Update so that Safari was unchecked, requiring users to explicitly request the browser. John Lilly, the CEO of Mozilla, the open-source developer responsible for Firefox, said Apple's tactic "undermines the Internet" because updates are traditionally used to patch or fix existing software, not install new programs. By 3:30 p.m. ET, Apple Software Update had dropped the iPhone Configuration Utility as a potential update to the same PCs that earlier had indicated the tool should be downloaded. Apple did not immediately respond to questions about why the iPhone utility had been offered, and whether the company had erred in listing it as an update for Windows users.