James Cameron Wants to Film Mars in 3-D

If James Cameron gets his way, Mars could be getting the Pandora treatment when NASA launches its newest rover Curiosity on an ambitious mission to the red planet next year.

The famed "Avatar" director, whose own 3-D camerawork has revolutionized the cinematic industry, has convinced NASA to mount a 3-D camera on top of Curiosity's mast for the upcoming Martian mission, scheduled to launch in 2011.

Cameron believes that including a camera with 3-D capabilities will help engage the public and generate more excitement about Curiosity's work.

"It's a very ambitious mission. It's a very exciting mission," Cameron said according to the Pasadena Star-News. "(The scientists are) going to answer a lot of really important questions about the previous and potential future habitability on Mars."

Cameron spoke in a Tuesday event at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), which is near NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena where the Curiosity rover is being built.

Cameron lobbied the space agency to include the 3-D camera on Curiosity's mission after JPL scaled back plans for such a device in 2007, as a way to compensate for the $2.3 billion mission being consistently over budget and behind schedule.

In January, Cameron met NASA chief Charles Bolden and was able to convince him and the space agency to purchase a 3-D camera for Curiosity, the director said. It would replace the mast camera (without 3-D capabilities) that has already been built and was delivered to JPL this month.

While the Curiosity team is unsure whether the new camera will be ready in time, they are eagerly anticipating the camera's potential to record Martian movies at a rate of 10 frames per second, reported the Star-News.

"You could take a movie and image clouds moving in the sky or a dust devil moving," said Joy Crisp, JPL deputy project scientist on Mars Science Laboratory, the official name for the rover project. "As you're driving, you could take a movie."

Now, it will be up to the Malin Space Science Systems, the San Diego-based company charged with building several of Curiosity's cameras, to scramble to build the 3-D camera in time.

"It's a thrill to be on even a tiny part of the mission," Cameron told the Star-News.

Cameron also spoke about the Earthly inspirations used to create the fictional world of Pandora, the moon location of his mega-hit "Avatar."

The filmmaker revealed that Pandora was created to look exotic and foreign, while still maintaining elements that audiences could identify and relate to.

"We tried to make it not completely fanciful," Cameron told the audience at the event titled "Is Pandora Possible?" "If it was too outlandish, there would be a believability gap."

To achieve this, Cameron took cues from flora, fauna and various other phenomena on Earth to create Pandora, which was conceived as a moon in the Alpha Centauri system.

SPACE.com -- James Cameron Wants to Film Mars in 3-D

Pot, meet kettle: a response to Steve Jobs' letter on Flash

Steve Jobs' recent missive on the deficiencies of Adobe's Flash is still reverberating around the Internet. In this guest editorial, John Sullivan of the Free Software Foundation responds, arguing that Apple is presenting users with a false choice between Adobe's proprietary software and Apple's walled garden.

Watching two proprietary software companies deeply opposed to computer user freedom lob accusations back and forth about who is more opposed to freedom has been surreal, to say the least. But what's been crystal clear is that the freedom these companies are arguing about is their own, not that of their users. And what they are calling freedom isn't freedom at all—it is the ability to control those users. Adobe is mad at Apple for not letting Adobe control iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch users via Flash, and Apple is mad at Adobe for suggesting that Apple is arbitrarily abusing its control over Application Store users.

Steve Jobs's "Thoughts on Flash" is the latest volley in this bout between pot and kettle, and while it makes many dead-on criticisms of Adobe and Flash, it does not change the fundamental character of this disagreement, nor does it solve any concerns about Apple's broader intentions.

What's strangely absent from "Thoughts on Flash" is any explanation for why proprietary technology on the Web is bad, or why free standards are good. Noting this omission helps us understand why, though we agree with his assessment of the problems with Flash and the importance of free Web standards, Jobs is led to a solution that is bizarre and unacceptable.

If he had said anything about why user freedom on the Web is important, his hypocrisy would have been explicit. In a nutshell, he says, "Don't use Adobe's proprietary platform to engage with information on the Web. Use Apple's." He doesn't want users to freely wander and creatively explore the Web or their own computers; he wants them to move from the fenced-off "Freedom Zone" based in San Jose to the one based in Cupertino.

Freedom on the Web has multiple elements. Free standards like HTML5, which govern Web publishing, are critical and have amazing potential, but they are only one element. Standards are not enough on their own, because there is another layer between them and the computer user—the software used to interact with the Web, and the operating system surrounding it. Freedom in terms of Web publishing does no good if the software with which you access the Web filters it before it ever gets to you, or restricts you in other ways in order to grant access to the Web. Proprietary software can be compatible with free standards while simultaneously undercutting the values those free standards seek to achieve. Such "freedom" will always be contingent. In order to have an actual, irrevocably free Web, both the Web publishing standards and the software which accesses them will need to be free.

Although Jobs talks part of the talk when he says, "we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open," his walk goes the opposite direction, advocating both a proprietary video format, H.264, and proprietary software for engaging it—iPhone OS.

The definition of proprietary software is software which restricts users' freedoms to view its source code, run it for any purpose, share it, or modify it. Jobs himself defines proprietary software when he says:

Adobe's Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.

The dreaded fine-print EULA is a primary tool software companies use to implement such restrictions. Looking at the EULAs for Apple and Adobe, we can see that they look pretty much the same, and that "iPhone OS" and "Apple" could be substituted for "Adobe" and "Flash" in Jobs's own quote. His implicit admission of this, that "Apple has many proprietary products too," is a comical understatement.

Adobe's license says:

You may install and use one copy of the Software on your compatible Computer.

This license does not grant you the right to sublicense or distribute the Software.

You may not modify, adapt, translate or create derivative works based upon the Software. You will not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the Software except to the extent you may be expressly permitted to reverse engineer or decompile under applicable law.

Apple's own terms of service document covering all applications downloaded from the App Store, says (in Section 10b):

(ii) You shall be authorized to use the Products only for personal, noncommercial use.

(iii) You shall be authorized to use the Products on five Apple-authorized devices at any time, except in the case of Movie Rentals, as described below.

Part of the reason why Flash and iPhone OS are proprietary is that Adobe and Apple agreed to the terms of the H.264 patent license. H.264, despite Jobs's claim, is not a free standard—patents necessary to implement it are held by a group that requires all users to agree to a license with restrictive terms. Those terms have previously even been unavailable for examination online. We are publishing them on fsf.org today in order to comment on their unethical restrictions. The fact that H.264 is a commonly used standard does not make it a free standard—the terms of its use are what matter, and they require all licensed software to include the following notice:

THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR THE PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE OF A CONSUMER TO (I) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC STANDARD ("AVC VIDEO") AND/OR (II) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C.  SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM

You'll find similar language in the license agreements of Final Cut Studio, Google Chrome, Mac OS X, and Windows 7.

Any Web that can be engaged only after agreeing to such terms, whether for software or a standard, is not "free" or "open." It is gated, and its use is restricted. Jobs himself explains the problems with giving up the freedom to use your computer and its software to another, when he says, "[Apple] cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers."

We agree with that statement, and it's exactly why users should not place themselves at the mercy of Apple or H.264 either. If you buy an iPhone OS computer, there is no recourse if Apple makes a decision you do not like. You'll wait on Apple to approve or not approve the application with features you want to use, you'll never be assured that Apple won't remove the application once it's accepted, and you'll wait on Apple to implement any bug fixes or new features, or to take care of your security—even though it's ostensibly your platform, your computer, and part of your life.

Better conclusions

A free Web needs free software. You cannot have a free Web if your access to the software you use to engage the Web is limited to an arbitrary number of computers, or if you are not allowed to conduct business on the Web using the software, or if you are forbidden from asking someone to develop additional features you need.

Jobs has hit the nail on the head when describing the problems with Adobe, but not until after smashing his own thumb. Every criticism he makes of Adobe's proprietary approach applies equally to Apple, and every benefit attributed to the App Store can be had without it being a mandatory proprietary arrangement. Apple can offer quality control and editorial selection over available free software, and encourage users to exclusively—but voluntarily—use their store. Instead, Apple chooses to enforce legal restrictions, the transgression of which is punishable by criminal law, on users who want to make changes to their own computers, like installing free, non-Apple, software.

Fortunately, the way out of the Adobe vs. Apple cage match is straightforward, and exists already: free software operating systems like GNU/Linux with free software Web browsers, supporting free media formats like Ogg Theora. To make things even better, we can continue urging Google to release their new media format, VP8, under a free license as well.

The language of the GNU General Public License, used by thousands of GNU/Linux developers worldwide as the terms for distributing their software, stands in stark contrast to the proprietary EULAs cited above, and provides a useful tool for building and sharing software to actually engage the free Web:

The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program—to make sure it remains free software for all its users.

When Jobs defensively points to Apple's involvement in WebKit, he inadvertently makes the case for the superiority of free software over his own proprietary App Store approach. WebKit is indeed free software, and Apple did help make it happen. But the success of WebKit is neither Apple's success alone (in fact, some of its advances have been achieved in spite of some uncooperative behavior by Apple) nor is it a result of their proprietary approach. They are one contributor among others, and those others are able to contribute because the software is freely licensed. WebKit users are not at the mercy of Apple—the source code is available and can be legally modified, so anyone is entitled to make and distribute new features or fixes. WebKit is an example of what the free Web can actually be. But, sadly, Jobs can't stand to let it be that—while the core of Safari is WebKit, it is engulfed in other proprietary code, giving Apple leverage we should reject.

So, the correct decision in the dispute between Apple and Adobe is "none of the above." The past we need to leave behind is not just Flash, it's Apple's proprietary software as well. There is plenty of room for them to join us along with everyone else in the free world—but they must stop pretending that their little cages are the free world.

John Sullivan is the operations manager for the Free Software Foundation.

Pot, meet kettle: a response to Steve Jobs' letter on Flash

Boy Scouts’ Videogame Badge Gets Parents in the Game

The Boy Scouts are prepared to get parents more involved with their kids’ videogame playing — and other geeky activities too.

This week, the organization introduced a new activity pin for playing games (right), which Boy Scouts of America says is aimed at making games a family activity. To earn the Video Games badges, Tiger Cubs, Cub Scouts and Webelos Scouts have to work with their parents to learn more about the games they love.

Later this year, the BSA will add three more tech-oriented pins to the lineup: robotics, inventing and geocaching.

The BSA wants parents to “look at (videogames) as a family activity, much like going to Six Flags or going out to eat,” representative Rene Fairrer told Wired.com.

“We want to empower (parents) with tools, if videogames are already in the house, on how to possibly open up a dialog so you don’t have a child spending half their day sitting around playing a videogame,” he said.

While some of the awards’ requirements can be met by playing games with friends, most of them require the Scout to do some research and preparation.

Boys first earn the Video Games belt loop by doing things like learning about the ESRB game rating system and creating a schedule with their parents that balances game time with other chores.

After that, a boy can earn the Academics Pin by teaching parents or friends how to play videogames, competing with his family in a game tournament or learning to install a game system.

The videogame award joins 53 other areas in which young Scouts can earn distinction, including astronomy, gymnastics, geology and skateboarding.

“Games can be fun,” Fairrer said. “Games can also be a learning experience.”

Boy Scouts’ Videogame Badge Gets Parents in the Game | GameLife | Wired.com

Potentially Dangerous Asteroid Spotted Passing Earth

An asteroid on the list of potentially dangerous space rocks that could endanger the Earth was caught on camera as it zoomed past our planet this month, and found to be larger than astronomers originally thought.

The asteroid buzzed the Earth on April 19 and came within 1.5 million miles (2.4 million km) of the planet. That's about six times the distance between Earth and the moon.

Astronomers used the planetary radar system on the famed Arecibo radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico to spot the asteroid, called 2005 YU55, over four days starting on April 19. The photo revealed the asteroid as a half-lit space rock flying through the solar system.

"This object is on the list of 'potentially hazardous asteroids' maintained by the Minor Planet Center, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.," Arecibo astronomers said in a statement. [More asteroid photos.]

The astronomers found that the asteroid is about 1,300 feet (400 meters) in size – about a quarter-mile (400 meters) long and twice as big as originally thought. The Arecibo telescope's planetary radar system resolved features on the asteroid down to about 25 feet (7.5 meters).

Asteroid 2005 YU55 was first discovered by astronomer Robert McMillan, of the Spacewatch detection team, on Dec. 28, 2005. And this isn't the only chance astronomers will have to study 2005 YU55.

The space rock will be back.

On Nov. 8, 2011, the asteroid will complete another trip around the sun and swing by Earth again just inside the moon's orbit. It should fly by at a distance of 191,120 miles (307,577 km), about eight-tenths the distance between Earth and the moon. The distance from Earth to the moon is on average about 238,900 miles (384,472 km).

The asteroid poses no risk of impacting the Earth when it returns next year, though astronomers will keep watching its path through space.

NASA routinely tracks asteroids and comets that may fly near the Earth with a network of telescopes on the ground and in space. The agency's Near-Earth Object Observations program is responsible for finding potentially dangerous asteroids and studying their orbits to determine if they pose a risk of hitting the Earth.

So far, the program has found about 85 percent of the huge asteroids that fly near Earth, but it hasn't been quite as good at finding rocks that are smaller. The program detected only 15 percent of space rocks that are 460-feet (140-meters) wide and could potentially cause widespread devastation at their impact sites if they hit us, according to a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences.

Only 5 percent of asteroids 164-feet (50-meters) across have been found, the report found. More funding is needed if NASA hopes to reach a Congress-mandated goal of tracking all potentially dangerous space rocks.

President Barack Obama has proposed a budget increase in NASA's asteroid-tracking program that would boost its resources from $3.7 million in 2009 to $20.3 million in 2011. The program received a $2 million increase in 2010 to support the Arecibo telescope.

Obama has also proposed sending astronauts to visit an asteroid by 2025 to study it and gather data that could help astronomers find ways to deflect space rocks before they threaten all life on Earth.

The Arecibo Observatory is part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center which is managed by Cornell University under a deal with the National Science Foundation. Astronomers with Cornell, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and the University of Maine participated in the observing of asteroid 2005 YU55.

SPACE.com -- Potentially Dangerous Asteroid Spotted Passing Earth

Steve Jobs Skewers Adobe in "Open Letter"

Steve Jobs has had enough of Adobe Flash and wants the world to move on and embrace HTML5

It's no secret that Steve Jobs is no fan of Adobe Flash -- Jobs basically kneecapped Flash development tools with iPhone OS 4.0. In addition, Jobs has long said that Flash on Mac computers is slow, buggy, and an incredible resource hog.

We all thought that the relationship between Apple and Adobe was beginning to thaw a bit when Apple announced that it would make hardware acceleration APIs available to developers like Adobe. That lead the way for yesterday's announcement of Flash Player 10.1 "Gala" for OS X which provides hardware acceleration of H.264 video content on Macs with NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M, or GeForce GT 330M GPUs.

But that isn't quite the end of the story. In fact, Steve Jobs has even more to say about Adobe Flash in the form of an open letter entitled "Thoughts on Flash". Job's long-winded rant goes on about the fact that Adobe Flash is proprietary; HTML5 is a better, open solution; the fact that Flash is a security risk to Mac computers; and that Adobe Flash simply eats away battery life on notebook computers (among other things).

Here's a blurb on Adobe Flash being proprietary:

Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.

Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards.

And here's another section with regards to Adobe Flash and its interaction with touch-based devices:

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

Jobs concludes, saying, "Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice… But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short."

"New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too)," Jobs adds. "Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind."

The fight between Adobe and Apple is definitely not over and we'll just have to sit back and wait to see what Adobe's repines to Jobs will be.

For those that want to read the full letter, head on over to Apple's website.

DailyTech - Steve Jobs Skewers Adobe in "Open Letter"

Infinity Ward staff sues Activision for up to $500 million

The fallout between Infinity Ward and Activision has taken yet another dramatic turn, as a large number of IW employees—both current and former—have filed a class-action lawsuit against the publisher for between $75 million and $125 million in unpaid bonuses.

The report comes via G4tv.com, which has obtained a copy of the lawsuit being filed by 38 people referring to themselves as the Infinity Ward Employee Group. The suit alleges that Activision breached a contract by not paying the entirety of the royalties due to employees after the success of Modern Warfare 2.

According to the report, Activision has paid $28 million in royalties so far, but still owes $54 million for 2009, as well as other bonuses based on the first quarter of 2010. The group is also seeking $75 million to $500 million in punitive damages.

"Activision owes my clients approximately $75 million to $125 million dollars," attorney Bruce Isaacs told G4. "Activision has withheld most of the money to force many of my people to stay, some against their will, so that they would finish the delivery of Modern Warfare 3. That is not what they wanted to do. Many of them. My clients [are] entitled to their money. Activision has no right to withhold their money—our money."

Employees continue to leave

Up until now, a total of 26 employees have left Infinity Ward, which means that at least 12 members of the Employee Group are still with the studio. Previously, Activision spokesman Dan Amrich said that employees who leave the studio would be giving up their bonus, and that "the more people that leave, the bigger the bonus gets for the people who stay." In light of allegations that the money was being held as a kind of ransom to get employees to stay, those statements look rather damning.

Many of the departed Infinity Ward developers have found a new home at Respawn Entertainment.

Activision, for its part, believes it has done nothing wrong. "Activision believes the action is without merit. Activision retains the discretion to determine the amount and the schedule of bonus payments for MW2 and has acted consistent with its rights and the law at all times. We look forward to getting judicial confirmation that our position is right," the company responded in a statement.

Infinity Ward staff sues Activision for up to $500 million

New salt crystals: Chips taste the same with 25% less sodium

Brilliant chemists have figured out how to change the shape of salt crystals, making all that junk food we love taste just as salty, even with 25% less sodium. Researchers discovered that only about 20% of the salt has enough time to dissolve in your mouth where you can taste it, with the rest dissolving in your digestive tract, where you can't. The new salt will dissolve quicker, delivering more taste.

About a year from now, Lay's will be cranking out chips laden with these newly restructured salt crystals, somehow convincing us that a product that consists of 50% fat is somehow "healthier." But hey, Lays says "there's no impact on taste." Cool, but this reduced-salt product is going to be difficult to sell. Our suggestion: Call it SuperSalt®, offer an "extra salty" variety, and sell this stuff as a standalone product for salt shakers everywhere.

New salt crystals: Chips taste the same with 25% less sodium | DVICE

Space Shuttle Atlantis Moves to Launch Pad for Final Planned Flight

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Atlantis held the spotlight late on Wednesday night into early Thursday morning as it rolled out of Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in Florida, on its way to the launch pad for what is planned to be its last flight.

The black-and-white winged-orbiter, mounted to an orange external fuel tank and twin white solid rocket boosters, left the voluminous building — the largest one-story building in the world — just before midnight  atop a mobile launcher platform and crawler transporter tracked vehicle.

Atlantis' trip to the launch pad came just a day after the successful landing of its sister ship Discovery on Tuesday to wrap up a 15-day flight to the International Space Station.

"One of my favorite shots, almost as fantastic as launch, is coming out here in the middle of the night, watching it clear the VAB doors. When it moves out into the xenon lights and they're shining on it, there's just something very special about that," former astronaut and Kennedy Space Center director Bob Cabana told collectSPACE.com. "The beginning of this journey into space, it all starts when the whole stack rolls out."

Atlantis' first moves at 11:31 p.m. EDT Wednesday were also slated to be among its last.

Scheduled to lift off in mid-May to the International Space Station (ISS) to deliver a new Russian-built mini-research module, Atlantis' STS-132 mission will mark its 32nd, and as planned, last spaceflight.

"STS-132 is the last flight of Atlantis," confirmed NASA's space shuttle launch integration manager Mike Moses on Tuesday, addressing the speculation that another mission might be added based on the plan to have Atlantis readied to rescue the crew of the final scheduled shuttle mission if an emergency arose. Only two flights are currently slated to fly after STS-132; STS-134 by shuttle Endeavour and STS-133 by Discovery.

"There has been a lot of talk from the administration about whether you go ahead and fly that rescue vehicle since you have the hardware... but there has been no decision made there and from a planning purpose standpoint we're still planning on STS-132 being the last flight of Atlantis," Moses explained.

"We've come up with a tagline," said STS-132 commander Ken Ham after Atlantis had arrived at the pad on Thursday at 6:03 a.m. EDT, 6 hours and 32 minutes after its rollout began. "This is the first last flight of Atlantis."

Thirty-nine rolls ... and a half

Though STS-132 is Atlantis' 32nd launch, it has made the journey to the launch pad seven — and a half — additional times.

The fourth orbiter to join NASA's fleet, Atlantis completed its first rollout to the pad on August 30, 1985, five weeks before lifting off on its maiden flight, STS-51J, a classified mission for the Department of the Defense.

Since then, over the past 25 years Atlantis has traversed the 3.5 to 4.2 miles (5.6 to 6.8 km) between the Vehicle Assembly Building and either pads 39A or 39B to deploy two planetary probes -- Galileo to Jupiter and Magellan to Venus; deploy the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and service the Hubble Space Telescope; and visit both the Mir and International space stations.

Sometimes though, those missions required more than one visit to the pad.

Twice Atlantis needed to be rolled back to the VAB due to technical issues discovered while it was being readied for launch. Once the problems — a hydrogen fuel leak in 1990 and a solid rocket booster cabling concern in 2001 — were resolved, Atlantis was rolled out again to fly the STS-38 and STS-98 missions successfully.

In fact, Atlantis had already gone through a partial rollout for STS-98 even before the cabling issue was identified. A failed computer on the crawler moving the shuttle to the pad resulted in Atlantis retreating again into the VAB.

More recently, Atlantis was rolled to the pad and ready to launch when its mission's target, the Hubble telescope, suffered its own hardware failure. Atlantis was rolled back and didn't begin the STS-125 mission until seven months later in May 2009.

Storms accounted for Atlantis' four and a half other round trips to the pad.

A hail storm in March 2007 resulted in damage to Atlantis' external tank for STS-117. Repairs were made inside the assembly building and the shuttle was returned to the pad to fly.

The threat from approaching hurricanes caused Atlantis to take shelter in the VAB three times, and almost a fourth.

The half-rollout statistic, which is unique to Atlantis, came in August 2006 after what was forecasted to be a growing storm, Tropical Storm Ernesto, weakened. Already on its way back to the VAB, Atlantis' move was reversed and it returned to the pad to begin the STS-115 mission 11 days later.

A very emotional moment

Atlantis' crew for the STS-132 mission was able to watch their ride to orbit leave for the launch pad, having arrived in Florida on Tuesday to take part in a dress rehearsal for their May 14th scheduled liftoff.

Originally the astronauts were slated to come to Kennedy Space Center after Atlantis had reached the pad but rain storms delayed the shuttle's departure by several days.

The late rollout meant that the six crew members could also catch a ride with Atlantis.

"Riding the crawler ... was absolutely fantastic," said Ham. "It was one of those moments that we shared with each other to remind us of the reality of what we're going to do,"

For Cabana, the rollout was similarly moving.

"To me, [it's] a very emotional moment," he said. "It's like it is pulling out of port, it's on its way. It is a three mile trip out to the pad and it's starting its journey to space. It is just phenomenal."

Click through to collectSPACE.com for the photo galleries: "Atlantis has left the building ... " and "Atlantis and astronauts at the pad."

SPACE.com -- Space Shuttle Atlantis Moves to Launch Pad for Final Planned Flight

New $100 bill uses clever 3D tech to thwart counterfeiters

It seems like they just changed the $100 bill, but today the U.S. Government announced it's been redesigned again, bringing in 3D technology to make it even harder to counterfeit. Try copying this, bad guys: That blue stripe is called a 3D security ribbon, and it contains a double image of the numeral 100 and bells that alternate as you tilt the bill.

Check out that copper-colored inkwell to the right of the blue stripe, which changes color as you tilt it, making the bell pictured inside appear and disappear as you move the bill around. The Treasury Department has been researching these neat tricks for a decade, trying to find a bill that's impossible to duplicate but easy to immediately recognize as genuine.

Looks like the Feds nailed it this time. Those new tricks are added to the old ones they kept in the design, including a watermark portrait of Benjamin Franklin, a tiny security thread, and that color shifting numeral 100.

When will we see this new currency? So far, all the government is saying is "TBD," to be determined.

New $100 bill uses clever 3D tech to thwart counterfeiters | DVICE

'Spectacular' First Images from New Solar Observatory Released

The first images of the sun beamed home from NASA's newest solar observatory have wowed mission scientists with their extraordinary detail and unexpected findings.

NASA released the first new images of our closest star today from the Solar Dynamics Observatory, a probe launched on Feb. 11 to peer deep into the layers of the sun, monitor solar storms and investigate the mysteries of the sun's inner workings.

"The spacecraft and the instruments are working very well," said Richard Fisher, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. "What we've seen is truly, in my view, spectacular."

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) carries three instruments that constantly stare at the sun, generating images that have a resolution 10 times better than an HD television.

"I believe this is going to be a revolutionary view" of the sun, Fisher told SPACE.com, who likened the new observatory's impact to that of the Hubble Space Telescope.

SDO will be revolutionary to the study of the sun "in the same way Hubble was revolutionary for astrophysics," he said.

The young solar observatory will also be generating an astounding amount of data.

It will stream the equivalent of half-a-million songs per day down to a ground station from its geosynchronous orbit. That's about 150 million bits of data per second, 24 hours a day and seven days a week — almost 50 times more science data than any other mission in NASA's history.

The simultaneous monitoring of several wavelengths of the sun's light coupled with the more rapid pace of observations will give scientists an unprecedentedly detailed view of the features present on the sun. It will also help monitor the solar flares and storms that can impact Earth, as well as shed light on the influence of the sun's magnetic field on the processes that take place within the sun.

Already observations of solar features and their evolution is showing that "the magnetic field is really much more dominant than we thought," Fisher said.

And though the spacecraft is still in its commissioning phase — meaning all of the instruments are being properly calibrated and the probe is entering its final orbit — it has taken images that are already making unexpected revelations.

One particularly interesting observation, Fisher said, shows the evolution of an active region of the sun, also known as a sunspot. The dark spots on the sun's surface are connected to intense magnetic activity. SDO caught this sunspot in decline that didn't look quite how scientists expected it to.

"It's a little bit baffling about what happened," Fisher said.

SDO observed that tiny changes in the magnetic field due to the decline of the sunspot "have a huge impact on the upper solar atmosphere," Fisher said, likening that to a situation on Earth where a lightning bolt in Indiana would cause a hurricane on the East Coast.

That SDO is already stumping scientists with its findings even though it's not yet in full observing mode (which will happen sometime next month) shows what a useful spacecraft it is, Fisher said.

"The hallmark of a successful science experiment [is] that you don't understand what you've gotten back," he said.

SPACE.com -- 'Spectacular' First Images from New Solar Observatory Released

Broken McAfee DAT update cripples Windows workstations

McAfee pushed out a virus definition update, 5958, at 06:00 PDT that causes false positive identification of the critical Windows system file svchost.exe. Machines running Windows XP Service Pack 3 using the 5958 definitions will delete the file, causing many key Windows services to fail to start. The Windows file is being mistakenly detected as W32/wecorl.a. Failure to start svchost.exe causes Windows to automatically reboot, hindering repair efforts.

At the time of writing, McAfee's support forum appears to have either gone offline or collapsed under the load, making threads about the issue inaccessbile. Before going offline, the company advised the following measures:

1. Boot the system into safe mode
2. Drop the attached extra.dat in c:/program files/common files/mcafee/engine
3. Reboot into normal mode

Rebooting into Windows normal mode type “shutdown /a” in the run line this aborts the automatic shutdown.

This will allow them to apply the exclusion.

The shutdown command must be run as an Administrator; regular users aren't able to abort shutdowns in progress.

The broken DAT should now be purged from the McAfee's distribution network (Akamai expected the purge to be completed by 09:45 PDT), and an updated version, 5959, was made available at around 10:15 PDT. This updated version is identical to 5958, with the problem definition removed.

At this point, anyone who hasn't been bitten by the problem should be safe. That may be little consolation to the estimated tens of thousands of computers damaged already. With unconfirmed (Update: now confirmed) reports that big customers like Intel have been hit by the problem, that number is set to grow.

This is not the first time a virus scanner has caused such a problem; a month ago, BitDefender had a similar issue, though the McAfee issue seems a little easier to repair. Just as with the BitDefender issue, this is something that would be trivially detected with even basic QA, which makes the regularity of such problems perplexing.

Users in our Windows Technical Mojo forum are discussing the issue along with some possible fixes.

Update: Official solutions from McAfee

Broken McAfee DAT update cripples Windows workstations

Steam UI Update Rolls Out Monday

"After two months in beta and over twenty updates, the Steam Client UI Update is slated to release to all Steam users this coming Monday, April 26," operator Valve has declared.

Though branded as a mere "UI Update," the changes it brings to the digital distribution platform extend beyond a new look.

For one, the new client offers "syndicated feeds from top computer gaming sources," including Shacknews. The underlying technology has also changed, with Steam now powered by "WebKit based rendering engine" instead of Internet Explorer.

Valve is also readying a Mac client of Steam, which will offer native Mac versions of Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal and the Half-Life series when it launches before the end of April 2010.

Steam UI Update Rolls Out Monday - Shacknews

EA Revives Ultima as Free-to-Play Browser Game

A new free-to-play game based on the Ultima role-playing series puts players in control of a medieval city.

The browser-based Lord of Ultima, a massively multiplayer strategy game, was launched Tuesday by Electronic Arts.

For lack of a better term, I’ve come to call games like Lord of Ultima “Travian-likes,” due to their similarities to the German browser game. Newcomers to the genre be warned: These games are all about forming alliances with other players and leveraging the power of numbers to your advantage. Play a game like Lord of Ultima as a loner and you’re doomed to the role of punching bag.

The Ultima games were created in the ’80s by role-playing legend Richard Garriott. After launching the pioneering MMO Ultima Online, Garriott parted ways with Origin Systems, the company he founded, leaving the Ultima line in Electronic Arts’ hands. EA has kept the Ultima Online flame alive since 1997, recently updating it with new content called Stygian Abyss.

EA Revives Ultima as Free-to-Play Browser Game | GameLife | Wired.com

Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 go RTM

Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Visio 2010 and Project 2010 reached the release-to-manufacturing stage yesterday morning. It should hit retail markets in June, as previously announced.

The beta version, released in November last year, has been downloaded by some 7.5 million people, more than three times the number who used the beta of Office 2007. The new version is the first to be available in both 64-bit and 32-bit versions, though the 64-bit version is primarily to allow developers access to a 64-bit version so that they can update extensions and add-ins (to pave the way for users to migrate to 64-bit in the future), and the 32-bit version is still recommended for most uses. Other features include a new ribbon user interface for Outlook, and greater support for Windows 7 features like Jump Lists.

Software Assurance customers will be able to download the new products starting April 27th, with Volume Licensing purchases possible on May 1st, and an official launch event will be on May 12th. There's no word yet of when MSDN and Technet subscribers will be able to get hold of the new version, but typically this happens at around the same time as SA availability. Pre-orders for retail copies can be placed immediately.

Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 go RTM

Mysterious New Object Discovered in Space

A strange and mysterious new object in space may the brightest and long-lasting "micro-quasar" seen thus far, a miniature version of the brightest objects in the universe.

The object suddenly began pumping out radio waves last year in the relatively nearby galaxy M82, some 10 million light-years away. Its discovery was announced Tuesday.

"The new object, which appeared in May 2009, has left us scratching our heads — we've never seen anything quite like this before," said researcher Tom Muxlow, a radio astronomer at the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory in England.

M82 is a "starburst galaxy," one that churns out new stars at a prodigious rate. Most of these stars die in huge explosions, with supernovas occurring roughly every 20 to 30 years in M82. However, the supernovas the researchers expect to see in that galaxy brighten at radio wavelengths over several weeks and then subside in later months.

In comparison, the mystery object turned on very rapidly within a few days and has shown no sign of dying down, even after nearly a year. "It's actually even brightened slightly," Muxlow explained.

Quasars big and small

Quasars are found in the center of galaxies and contain supermassive black holes. They are no more than a light year or two across but thousands of times brighter than our entire galaxy, which allows them to be seen more than 10 billion light years away. Their energy is thought to emerge from matter spiraling at high speeds into the super-massive black holes theoretically at the centers of most major galaxies.

However, this newfound object seems to lie roughly 100 light years from M82's heart — far enough away to make it unlikely it is linked with that galaxy's core.

Micro-quasars, like their larger counterparts, likely involve matter spiraling into black holes.

However, the object in M82 is three to 10 times brighter than any micro-quasar seen until now, and has outlasted any micro-quasar seen thus far, which generally peak in brightness after a few days or weeks.

"We think a massive black hole must be involved, but we don't really understand how it's getting fueled," Muxlow said.

More study needed

To learn more about this enigma, "we have just started processing data from an array of 20 radio telescopes across the Earth taken for the central nuclear region of M82," Muxlow explained. "These images will allow us to examine the structure of the new radio source in detail. However, processing such huge datasets takes significant amounts of computing effort and painstaking work. Only then will we be able to see if it is some rare form of micro-quasar. Watch this space!"

Such bright, enduring micro-quasars might exist in our galaxy as well. "We might expect to see one maybe once every 100 years," Muxlow conjectured.

Muxlow will detail the discovery on April 14 at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in Glasgow, Scotland. A paper on the discovery has accepted by the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters.

SPACE.com -- Mysterious New Object Discovered in Space

Microsoft FixIt Center beta fixes Windows 7 and Vista errors automatically

Just yesterday I wrote about FixWin, a free program which helps fix a number of Windows Vista and Windows 7 errors. It's a lot like Microsoft's web-based FixIt solutions. Today, there's another option and it comes straight from Microsoft.

Their new Fix It Center is a program you can download for free which provides automatic fixes for a wide range of bugs and annoyances. Choose the issue you need to fix, click run, and follow the prompts. The step-by-step instructions are very easy to understand -- even for your less-technical family and friends who typically rely on your expertise to correct these kinds of problems.

Loads of common errors can be fixed -- from broken Aero transparency to network adapter glitches to Windows Media Player library and DVD issues. There's even a system maintenance option which checks for broken shortcuts, date and time problems, disk volume errors, and more!

Once this baby is finalized, I'm pretty sure I'll be installing it on every system which lands on my workbench. Hey, if it means I can get my coworkers to tell customers 'run FixIt Center and click [...]' instead of doing a step-by-step walkthrough, it's worth it!

Fix It Center is a free download from Microsoft. It's a test release right now, but I didn't experience any crashes or strange behavior while testing.

As with other automated fix tools, I strongly recommend creating system restore points prior to running any of the repairs.

Microsoft FixIt Center beta fixes Windows 7 and Vista errors automatically

Why Volcanic Ash Threatens Air Travel

THE GIST:

• Volcanic ash clouds typically rise to the same altitudes where commercial airliners fly.
• The fine, abrasive particles in the ash sandblast the exterior of aircrafts, stick to an engine's hot parts and clog navigation sensors.
• This is the first time that a volcanic plume has covered an area of dense air traffic.

---

Q: Why did a plume of high-altitude volcanic ash blowing in from Iceland on Thursday disrupt flights across much of northwestern Europe?
A: Civil aviation has become increasingly aware of the dangers of flying through the microscopic fragments of rock and pumice that make up ash clouds. Jet engines are highly complex machines designed to function in environments free of debris and corrosive gases, and the effects of volcanic ash have severely endangered safety on some flights.

Q: Why do national air traffic control bodies close down their airspace when ash is around?
A: The volcanic plume normally travels at altitudes of between 20,000 feet and 55,000 feet. This coincides with the flight levels of almost all commercial jet flights. But flights by smaller propeller planes using visual flight rules are usually permitted because these take place at much lower altitudes.

Q: How does the ash affect airliners and what are the dangers it poses?
A: The very fine but extremely abrasive particles present a hazard to the aircraft's airframe and power plants. They easily scratch and erode paint, aluminum and glass. This damages the wings' leading edges, and has a sandblasting effect on cockpit windscreens and landing lights. Inside the engines, the particles stick to the engine's hot parts, forming a glasslike coating, and grind up turbines, bearings, and other moving parts, restricting airflow through the turbine. This may lead to the immediate loss of thrust and eventually engine failure.

The ash can block the pitot tubes and other sensors that supply vital information on speed and outside air pressure. It also can clog air filters, such as the ones through which air flows to the passenger cabin.

Q: When was flying through ash clouds recognized as a safety threat?
A: During the early 1980s, two Boeing 747s were severely damaged by the ash clouds spewing from Galunggung Volcano on Indonesia's Java island. One of these, a British Airways flight, lost power on all four engines. While the pilots managed to restart the engines at a lower altitude, the resulting glide still ranks as one of the longest ever performed by an aircraft not specifically designed as a glider.

Another 747 encountered similar problems while flying through the ash clouds over Mt. Redbout, near Anchorage in Alaska. And at least 10 Jumbo jets and 10 DC-10s suffered multiple engine failures in 1991 from ash from Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines.

Q: Why hasn't volcanic ash caused such a massive disruption of air traffic before?
A: This is the first time that a volcanic plume has covered an area of dense air traffic. About 20,000 flights take place in Europe each day, and the ash caused about 20 percent of these to be canceled. Usually, the eruptions occur in regions where there is limited airliner traffic, such as the "Ring of Fire" that extends across the Pacific rim from Indonesia to Chile.

Q: Why don't airliners just fly around the ash clouds, just as they do when skirting thunderstorms?
A: One of the main dangers posed by ash is that it is not visible at night or in cloud, and that an aircraft's weather radar cannot pick it up. Radar works on the principle of detecting water droplets in clouds, but since the ash clouds are dry, they do not reflect radar signals.

Ash particles conduct electrical charges. Often, the first indication that the pilots have of volcanic ash is the appearance of St. Elmo's Fire — a harmless electrical phenomenon that creates a ball of light around the wingtips — created when the charged particles strike the aircraft.

Q: How long will the current disruptions in Europe last?
A: That depends on how long the volcanic eruptions continue to shoot ash into the atmosphere, and on the prevailing winds in coming days. The plume appears to be following the jet stream which normally curves across the British Isles and Scandinavia.

Why Volcanic Ash Threatens Air Travel : Discovery News

Obama Aims to Send Astronauts to an Asteroid, Then to Mars

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - President Barack Obama unveiled a sweeping new space vision for NASA and the United States Thursday, one that aims to send astronauts to a nearby asteroid and ultimately on to Mars.

By 2025, the United States is expected to begin testing spacecraft for deep space exploration, vehicles capable of exploring beyond the moon on the first-ever manned trip to an asteroid, Obama said.

"By the mid-2030s I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth," President Obama said.

Speaking to a crowd of more than 200 people here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, President Obama outlined his plan for NASA's future space exploration. That plan includes resurrecting a pared down version of the capsule-based Orion spacecraft initially slated to be scrapped under the president's cancellation of the Constellation program in February.

The new version of the Orion spacecraft would be launched unmanned to the International Space Station to serve as an escape ship for American astronauts, giving NASA more flexibility from its reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft, White House officials said. [Fact sheet on Obama's space plan.]

The president also announced his commitment to building a heavy-lift rocket in 2015, one which could be geared to launching new spacecraft and payloads for ambitious expeditions to a nearby asteroid and stable points in space called Lagrange points in preparation for a manned spaceflight to Mars. Obama has proposed a $19 billion budget for NASA in 2011 and added another $6 billion over five years onto that in his announcement today.

NASA's original Constellation program aimed at retiring the space shuttle fleet in late 2010 and replacing it with Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets by 2015. But an independent review by a White House committee found the program behind schedule and underfunded to accomplish its end-goal of returning astronauts to the moon by 2020.

Edward Crawley, an MIT professor who served on the White House committee, said Obama's plan falls in line with one of the committee's recommendations – a flexible plan that allows for incrementally more ambitious deep space missions by astronauts using a new heavy-lift rocket.

"This is essentially...the flexible path," Crawley told reporters.

Obama unveiled his space plan at the Operations and Checkout Building at the Kennedy Space Center, the very same building NASA turned over to the Constellation program in 2009 to build and service Orion spacecraft. This is the first time in 12 years a sitting U.S. president has visited the Florida spaceport.

The last Commander in Chief to visit the NASA spaceport was President Bill Clinton, who appeared to watch original Mercury astronaut John Glenn rocket into space aboard the shuttle Discovery at age 77.

Unpopular plan

Obama's proposal to cancel the Constellation program and call on commercial spacecraft builders to provide the spaceships to launch astronauts into space has drawn harsh criticism from lawmakers and the public alike.

Most recently, famed Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong – the first person to walk on the moon – and other lunar explorers spoke out against the plan in an e-mail statement sent to the media. Armstrong and fellow Apollo program astronauts Jim Lovell and Eugene Cernan called Obama's space vision "devastating" to the United States' spaceflight legacy.

"To be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second- or even third-rate stature," the former astronauts wrote.

Other critics blasted the plan because of its initial apparent lack of destination, while supporters contend that it will free NASA to tackle more ambitious space missions by using commercial vehicles to ferry American astronauts to low-Earth orbit.

Those supporters include Buzz Aldrin, who landed on the moon with Armstrong during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission.
"I hope NASA will embrace this new direction as much as I do, and help us all continue to use space exploration to drive prosperity and innovation right here on Earth," Aldrin said in a statement. "Mars is the next frontier for humankind, and NASA will be leading the way there if we aggressively support the President's plans."

Saving space jobs

Obama's space plan, which still needs to win approval from a skeptical Congress, still includes retiring NASA's shuttle fleet, but adds some funding to allow flights between September and December 2010 if there are slight delays. It would also extend the International Space Station's operations through at least 2020.

NASA plans to fly just four more shuttle missions – one of which is under way now – before retiring the shuttle fleet later this year.

Here at the Kennedy Space Center, workers are focused on the 2,500 jobs beyond what was coming for the planned Constellation program – also promised in Obama's space plan. The center expected to lose thousands of jobs once with the shuttle is retirement in September and the cancellation of Constellation.

The space shuttle Discovery is also back in space today.

The shuttle and a crew of seven astronauts are in the midst of a two-week delivery mission to the International Space Station. Discovery is due to depart the space station on Saturday and land Monday morning.

SPACE.com -- Obama Aims to Send Astronauts to an Asteroid, Then to Mars

Winscape virtual window features Wiimote headtracking, absolutely made of win

We have not modified the above picture in any way -- Scout's Honor. That's a real baby, wearing a real IR necklace that interacts with a real Wiimote. What's not real, of course, is the view of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. That is generated by Ryan Hoagland's DIY virtual window, a brilliant pastiche of interior design, RED ONE footage and Johnny Chung Lee-style headtracking, all directed to your eyes by a Mac Pro feeding a pair of plasma screens. As the viewer moves around, dual 1080p images move the opposite direction, providing the convincing illusion of looking out a real pane of glass at the incredibly detailed scenery beyond. Exciting? Then you'll be giggling like Jr. when you hear it's for sale. After spending a year figuring out how to mount, drive and cool the whole shebang, Hoagland would like you to have one too; he plans to have basic kits ready by July for under $3000. Watch baby-powered plasma in motion after the break, as well as a sweet time-lapse video of the build process.

Winscape virtual window features Wiimote headtracking, absolutely made of win -- Engadget

Trillian 4.2 Beta Detects Rickrolls, Adds Great Inline Replies

Windows: The extremely popular instant messaging application Trillian just released a new beta, adding direct replies to emails and tweets via notification popups, instant URL previews (you won't get duped by rickrolls or NSFW links), and more Wikipedia data for quick lookups.

Apart from those solid feature improvements, the new beta release has better Windows Live support, a great new history feature for browsing through sent and received images, improved skinning, and all-around faster setup. If you're already a Trillian fan and don't mind a few rough edges, kicking the tires on this beta release seems like a no-brainer.

Trillian 4.2 Beta is a free download for Windows. (Just be sure to skip the Ask.com toolbar installation.)

Trillian 4.2 for Windows Public Beta: Upgraded Windows Live protocol, can detect Rickrolls. [Trillian Blog]

Trillian 4.2 Beta Detects Rickrolls, Adds Great Inline Replies - Instant Messengers - Lifehacker

Google to open-source YouTube's video codec, may end HTML5 video war

Rumors are swirling about Google's plans to release VP8, the video codec that powers YouTube, as open source. That could put an end to the HTML5 video wars between open codec Ogg Theora (backed by Mozilla, and backed by Google on mobile devices) and H.264, the proprietary codec favored by Apple and Microsoft (in IE9, anyway).

VP8 arguably offers better quality than Theora, and it wouldn't have H.264's licensing issues if it were made open source. In theory, it could crush them both. In practice, it could be a political issue. Apple will probably keep pushing H.264 hard, and what Microsoft might do is anyone's guess. The Inquirer is reporting that Google's announcement is expected next month. HTML5 video has become the best soap opera on the web, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Google to open-source YouTube's video codec, may end HTML5 video war

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 gets a release candidate

Hardware acceleration in the browser is quite a popular topic these days, what with Microsoft, Google, and Mozilla all doing their best to harness your GPU. Adobe's been hard at work, too, putting the finishing touches on Flash Player 10.1.

A release candidate is now available for download from Adobe Labs, and it's looking good. If you've got a compatible GPU in your system, watching HD video and playing Flash games should see a significant reduction in resource utilization.

Along with hardware acceleration support, 10.1 is also designed to play nicely with the private browsing modes built-in to all the major web browsers. It's working in Google Chrome, according to NirSoft's Flash Cookies View. My Incognito session left no traces behind from GMail or Home Depot, both of which left Flash cookies behind in my regular browsing windows.

Flash 10.1 brings a slew of other fixes and improvements (including multi-touch support). More info on the release is available in this PDF from Adobe -- I've linked it via Google's web-based viewer.

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 gets a release candidate