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HOUSTON -- Nearly three years before Columbia launched, NASA engineers listed a host of potentially risky problems with foam insulation applied to shuttle fuel tanks at Lockheed Martin's factory near New Orleans, agency records show. A list of "high risk" items was circulated among tank program officials in February 2000, including manufacturing processes at the Michoud Assembly Facility. That's where investigators are now probing whether application flaws caused foam debris to break away from Columbia's tank. NASA investigators have zeroed in on wing damage from foam debris as the cause of the Feb. 1 accident that destroyed the $2 billion...

SEOUL, South Korea--As Cho Won Hee zips effortlessly from one Web site to another, his doting mother at his side, it is easy to understand why Silicon Valley views South Korea as the promised land of instant access to the Internet. The Chos' high-speed digital line--100 times faster than the typical dial-up connection in the United States--is their zippy gateway to home entertainment, education and shopping, all for $32 a month. And despite the relatively recent arrival of such connections, the Chos, like many Koreans, are already as addicted to their broadband hookup as most Americans are to their television...

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - With a final sonic boom reverberating over the north end of Edwards Air Force Base, a NASA research aircraft has completed the first phase of the Active Aeroelastic Wing flight research program. NASA research pilot Richard Ewers flew the final two test points during the 35-minute flight in mid-April from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards. In all, 50 test missions were flown by two project pilots in the modified F/A-18A since the first flight last November. The Active Aeroelastic Wing project seeks to determine the advantages of twisting flexible wings for primary maneuvering...

SlimySlimy writes "According to this article on Secunia, a new IE exploit was found that crashes almost any version of Internet Explorer past 4.0 with just 5 lines of plain HTML code (no JavaScript, ActiveX, etc.). If you're very brave, you can test/crash your IE by going here." There's also a note on SecurityFocus.

Sit and surf: MSN UK tests portable potty By Joe Wilcox Staff Writer, CNET News.comMay 2, 2003, 10:44 AM PThttp://news.com.com/2100-1041-999509.html How far will MSN go to get new subscribers? Apparently to the portable potty at your local summer concert or festival. MSN UK is creating what Microsoft calls the world's first Internet outhouse, or iLoo, complete with flat-screen plasma display, wireless keyboard and broadband access. MSN UK spokesman Matthew Whittingham described the portable toilet as the first "WWW.C," referring to the term W.C., or water closet."This is another demonstration of Microsoft moving into new product areas to expand its...

IBM Creation Could Boost Optical NetworkingResearchers say they've created the world's smallest solid-state light emitter, which could have applications in ultra-fast optical networks By InformationWeek May 1, 2003 (08:15)URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=9400288 Researchers at IBM announced on Thursday that they have created the world's smallest solid-state light emitter, an advance that could have significant applications for optical networking. By configuring a carbon nanotube into a transistor, scientists are able to apply a negative charge to one end and a positive charge to the other. When the opposing charges meet, they neutralize each other and generate light. Because it's a transistor, the...

Microsoft To Unveil 'Advanced' Communication PC'Athens' is one of several products expected to be introduced at next week's WinHEC confab. By InformationWeek May 1, 2003 (06:36)URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=9400284 Bill Gates next week will unveil a new kind of computer at Microsoft's annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in New Orleans. The PC prototype, co-developed with Hewlett-Packard and referred to as Athens, is a platform for collaboration and communication that's outfitted for "advanced" voice, video, and text messaging, according to Microsoft. Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect also is expected to show other prototypes and to lay out the company's vision for...

Is Redmond sucking wind with MS Server 2003? No apps, so lots of power By Jack Russell: Friday 02 May 2003, 09:45 MOST REPORTS on Server 2003 have been in the neutral to cautiously optimistic range, as the IT realm hunted around for reasons why someone might actually want to deploy it. According to Steven Vaughan-Nichols from Practical Technology, however, there's more than a little water in Redmond's gas tank with this latest release. Want to run SQL Server database? Well, hopefully you aren't running 6.5 or 7.0, and while Server 2000 will run (patched) there's at least some...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp. said on Thursday it used microscopic carbon molecules to emit light -- a breakthrough some scientists say might one day make faster and smaller computers. In the quest for ever-smaller computing devices, researchers are seeking to replace silicon as the foundation for chips. Researchers at IBM have been studying tiny carbon nanotubes -- molecules resembling rolls of chicken wire that are 50,000 times narrower than a human hair. By engineering the carbon nanotube, IBM said it was able to not only conduct current, but to create light that could someday be used...

Here's a possible solution for those who've received a message similar to "Your browser did not accept our Focus cookie" while attempting to log in. Received this the other day from someone who solved the problem (at least solved it in his case): Hello Jim, I just wanted to let you know that I did solve the login/cookie problem. Somehow, FreeRepublic.com got added to IE's internal list of "Restricted Zone" Web sites on my computer. So even though my IE Privacy Settings were set to accept the FreeRepublic.com cookies, IE was still rejecting them (it appears that Zone settings take...

Story Url: http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34033401 Send story to the . IBM Scientists Create World's Smallest Solid-state Light Emitter; Pioneering New Applications for Carbon Nanotubes 1 May 2003, 2:00pm ET - - - - - YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 1, 2003--IBM today announced it created the world's smallest solid-state light emitter. This research breakthrough - the first, electrically-controlled, single-molecule light emitter - demonstrates the rapidly improving understanding of molecular devices. The results also suggest that the unique attributes of carbon nanotubes may be applicable to optoelectronics, which is the basis for the high-speed communications industry. IBM's previous work on the electrical properties...

Athlon 64: The processor that wasn't there? Conspiracy theory By Arron Rouse: Wednesday 30 April 2003, 16:42 AMD IS BETTING its shirt on the x86-64 AMD64 architecture. The Opteron has been released and has delivered some impressive results. But there are already rumours that the Athlon 64 might be pushed back to next year. And there is evidence for an even more startling conclusion. There is evidence that could mean the Athlon 64 isn't just going to be pushed into next year, there is evidence that it could be pushed altogether. The first piece of evidence in this conspiracy...

HP Australia proposes Indian outsourced "final solution" Digitalsoft gets the jobs By INQUIRER staff: Thursday 01 May 2003, 09:27 FURTHER SIGNS of attempts to slim down costs and shed jobs at HP came today after the INQUIRER saw a document outsourcing Australian staff to India. The memo was seen by ZD Net Australia, and reported in this article here, but that's already sparked a witch hunt inside the organisation for the mole, the INQUIRER has learned. Christine Scammell, general manager of customer support for HP Services, South Pacific said in the memo, which we've also seen, that the move...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. pilots who bombed Baghdad say increasingly detailed flight simulators helped familiarize them with the terrain, the threats and even the weather conditions they would face on the battlefield. Related Quotes SGILLLLMTNOCRTNCAE.TODJIANASDAQ^SPC 1.0844.4050.0587.9529.933.498480.091464.31916.92 +0.02+0.15-0.20-1.34-0.26+0.27-22.90-6.99-0.92 delayed 20 mins - disclaimerQuote Data provided by Reuters   "The location of my flight and the tactics employed were exactly like we were practicing in the MTC (Mission Training Center) ... before we left," the F-16 pilot who dropped the first HARM missile on Baghdad wrote in an e-mail to trainers at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina. "It was pretty cool...

LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists equipped with state of the art detectors deep underground in northern England have begun a search for one of the most tantalizing secrets of the universe -- known as Dark Matter.   "If we are successful in our quest then we are looking at a place in the history books," Neil Spooner of Sheffield University said on Tuesday. "This will be one of the great discoveries of our time." Teams of scientists around the world are racing to be the first to discover the truth about Dark Matter, which cannot be seen because it does...

Command, Control, ConquerThe most stunning aspect of the Iraq war may have been the Pentagon's exceptional command and control structure.by Christian Lowe 04/28/2003 12:00:00 AM Christian Lowe, contributing writer WHEN IT COMES TO WEAPONRY, America's prowess is unmatched. Precision-guided bombs and missiles that can target a specific window in a specific building in downtown Baghdad have become the symbol of U.S. combat power. But America's greatest military advantage lies in its unparalleled ability to command its forces and control them during wartime. This may sound intuitive, but a closer look reveals just how amazing the U.S.'s capability in command...

Chief executive for the Recording Industry Association of America, Hilary Rosen, is helping draft copyright legislation for the New Iraq, according to investigative journalist Gregory Palast. "Who's really going to win this war? It looks like Madonna," Palast told Democracy Now radio. "Where before, they feared Saddam Hussein, now they have to fear Sony Records will chop off their hands if they bootleg a Madonna album." Under Iraqi copyright legislation, passed by The Revolution Leadership Council in 1971, a copyright lapses 25 years after the death of the author, but no more then fifty years after the publication of the...

Impact alert as X-ray satellite plummets to Earth   13:19 29 April 03   NewScientist.com news service   Thirty-nine countries around the world are on impact alert, as an Italian satellite falls in an uncontrolled spiral towards Earth. The red lines track the path of BeppoSAX, showing where debris from the satellite may hit the Earth¹s surface. (Image: Italian Space Agency)   The 1400-kilogram BeppoSAX satellite is expected to break up as it enters the Earth's atmosphere on Tuesday evening, showering the area below its flight path with chunks of metal. Its equatorial orbit has been decaying since the satellite was switched...

A METAL drum found in Iraq that initially tested positive for a nerve agent could in fact contain rocket fuel, a US expert has said. Two mobile chemical laboratories found nearby might also have been used for mixing the fuel and not making banned weapons, the chief chemical weapons officer of the 4th Infantry Division added. Further tests on the tan 209-litre drum were expected in the coming days, said Lieutenant Colonel Valentin Novikov. Initial tests showed that the contents of the barrel tested positive for the nerve agent cyclosarin and a blister agent that could be a precursor of...

Help, fellow Freepers! Here's my problem. I run Win 2000 Pro and IE 6, and had a trojan-caused crash. I ran Norton AV, and everything is OK, except for what happened when I did a clean install of Win2000. On bootup, I now have two choices: the old desktop, and the new desktop. Fine, no problem. I just have two parallel universes on my computer! When I reinstalled IE6, all my old folders, inbox messages, sent messages, and my fancy subfolders (all .DBX files) I use for work did not migrate over. I can't even open them up in the...