Breakthrough could help hydrogen replace petrol as fuel

Hydrogen fuel could become viable as an eco-friendly alternative to petrol, thanks to a new process that allows it to be stored cheaply and practicably.

The technology utilises materials that soak up hydrogen like a sponge, and then encapsulates them in tiny plastic beads so small they behave like a liquid.

The process, based on a new way of producing nano-fibres from hydrides, is being developed by Cella Energy, a spin-off from UK Rutherford Appleton Lab.

The technique allows hydrogen to be released at a much faster rate and at lower temperatures than before, researchers said, the Daily Mail reports.

"What we've been doing is taking these materials and encasing them in plastic and making them into a very fine powder and that improves their properties," said Stephen Bennington, Cella Energy Chief Scientific Officer.

"It also means you can pump it like a fluid and it's safe. It is not gong to easily burst into flames," he said.

Hydrogen produces only water when it is burned and is considered an ideal solution to cutting carbon emissions from petrol or diesel vehicles, which are estimated to cause 25 per cent of all carbon release.

But until now, attempts to store hydrogen have not been consumer-friendly so this has not been a viable option. Cella Energy Ltd say their technology would allow people to use the carbon-free fuel with their existing car after a few modifications.

Discovery astronauts complete ’textbook’ spacewalk

Two space shuttle Discovery astronauts moved a failed ammonia cooling pump during a more than six-hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station.

NASA officials called Monday's work a "textbook" spacewalk, after overcoming a problem with the station's robotic arm that left astronaut Steve Bowen holding the weightless pump for a bit longer than expected.

It was the first of two spacewalks in the shuttle mission, which is Discovery's last before the spacecraft is retired.

NASA said after the spacewalk that it had decided to add another day to the mission, making it a 12-day affair, in order to allow Discovery astronauts to help with work setting up a new room that it carried aloft.

Astronauts Bowen and Alvin Drew also installed a back-up power extension cable and camera equipment and did other work to make future spacewalks easier.

Before heading back inside, they filled a metal container with the vacuum of space as part of a Japanese experiment called "Message in a Bottle" that will later be displayed on Earth.

The cooling pump broke last year and had to be relocated from a temporary storage location where it had been stashed on an earlier spacewalk. It had to be moved before it can be taken back to Earth for analysis.

The six-hour, 34-minute spacewalk wrapped up at 2220 GMT.A second spacewalk is set for Wednesday.

Two more shuttle flights are planned for later this year in the final missions for the rest of the fleet, Endeavour and Atlantis.

Discovery's mission is delivering the last major US contribution to the ISS - an extra room - along with supplies and equipment, including a human-like robot, known as Robonaut 2 (R2), the first such robot ever sent to space.

Apple launches iPad 2

A thin but energetic Steve Jobs made a surprise return to the spotlight on Wednesday, taking the stage to unveil Apple Inc's new iPad and drawing a standing ovation.

The Silicon Valley legend has been out on medical leave since late January and his reappearance, in trademark turtleneck and jeans, bolstered Apple shares and reassured investors and fans worried about his health.

Defying speculation in some tabloid reports that he was seriously ailing, Jobs took swipes at rivals and mocked competing tablet computers. Striding back and forth across the stage at the Yerba Buena Center, Jobs spoke passionately about the iPad 2's features as No. 2 and heir apparent Tim Cook looked on.

The $499 device is thinner than the iPhone 4, twice as fast as the last tablet, camera-equipped, and ships March 11 in the United States and March 25 in 26 more countries. The surprisingly fast roll-out highlights the fierce competition in

the tablet market.

"We've been working on this product for a while and I just didn't want to miss today," Jobs told a packed auditorium in San Francisco with his characteristic flair and energy.

A relaxed-looking Jobs lingered near the theater stage for more than 20 minutes after the show wrapped up, chatting amiably with acquaintances and Apple employees.

In the run-up to the event, there had been almost as much speculation about whether Jobs would appear as there was about the device itself.

Jobs, who has been treated for a rare form of pancreatic cancer, remains on medical leave for an undisclosed condition. An Apple spokesman referred questions about his medical leave back to Jobs' statement in January that he planned to remain involved in major strategic decisions for the company.

His appearance on Wednesday comes at a critical moment. Apple is launching the next generation of its ground-breaking tablet computer just as its main adversaries are releasing their first such devices.

"Steve Jobs is the most important asset for Apple without a doubt and that's why investors are so curious about whether he will remain and continue to have an impact," said Robert Lutts,

chief investment officer at Cabot Money Management. "The stock went up after his appearance but not as much as it normally would if Apple had a fully healthy CEO."

IPAD 2 ARRIVES NEXT WEEK

The iPad 2 goes on sale at AT&T Inc and Verizon Wireless, and at $499 is about $100 cheaper than Motorola Mobility's Xoom. Its shares slid 4 percent. Avian Securities analyst Matthew Thornton said Motorola investors were concerned by both its earlier-than-expected release and its still-aggressive pricing.

"The hardware is as good as anything on the market, the price is still very aggressive, and the software just buries the competition," said Gartner analyst Van Baker. "They're still the guys to beat by a large margin."

"This does serious damage to the competitors in the market. Xoom now looks like an extraordinarily expensive tablet, and the HP tablet looks under-featured." Apple sold nearly 15 million iPads in nine months of 2010, two or three times as many as analysts had predicted. The company is expected to sell 30 million or more this year, which would generate close to $20 billion in sales.

That is despite a growing cast of competitors like Motorola, Research in Motion and Hewlett-Packard Co. Shares of Cupertino, California-based Apple were up 1.2

percent at $353.44 on Nasdaq late Wednesday afternoon. "It's pretty positive. It's definitely a sign that he's in good enough health," said Vijay Rakesh at Sterne Agee.

Tablets are seen as a must-have device for consumers and many businesses over the next few years. Analysts expect the market to surge to more than 50 million units this year, and 200 million units by 2015.

As in the smartphone market, Apple's chief rival is expected to be Google Inc's Android platform, which is free to license and is being used on a number of tablets.

The iPad, along with the iPhone, is expected to fuel Apple's growth over the next several years. The two product lines already make up more than half the company's revenue. Apple's products tend to be priced at a premium to its rivals, but the iPad has been priced aggressively low versus the competition, both to dominate the market and because the company can leverage its own retail network and pre-bought manufacturing capacity.

That has pinched the company's margins, a problem Apple seems happy to live with if the tablet can deliver such startling growth.

A longer-term problem might be the question of who might replace Jobs were he to step down -- Cook is the favorite for the top job and has been running Apple in his boss's absence. But for now, concerns that Jobs might have to exit --stirred by sensationalist and unsubstantiated tabloid reports -- appear to be allayed by Wednesday's proceedings.

"Investors know his illness is pretty serious, but it's comforting to know that while he's in his supposed leave of absence, he's still involved," said Capital Advisors Growth Fund co-manager Channing Smith. "The new product looks good and

the key is they continue to innovate, which is what we want to watch rather than looking at Steve Jobs." Apple shares rose 0.8 percent to close at $352.12 on

Nasdaq. It held steady in after-hours trade.

How Apple's iPad 2 compares to rivals

Here's how Apple Inc's iPad 2, unveiled on Wednesday, stacks up against competing tablets.

BY THE NUMBERS:

iPad 2

Price: $499-$829

Weight: 1.33 lbs

Height: 9.5 inches

Width: 7.3 inches

Depth: 0.34 inches

Technicals: Runs on 1GHz dual-core A5 processor, iOS 3.4

Available: March 11

iPad - original

Price: $499-$829

Weight: 1.5 lbs

Height: 9.6 inches

Width: 7.5 inches

Depth: 0.5 inches

Technicals: Runs on 1GHz A4 processor

Motorola Mobility Xoom

Price: $600-$799

Available: Since February

Software: Android

Weight: 1.6 lbs

Height: 9.8 inches

Width: 6.6 inches

Depth: 0.5 inches

Tech: Runs on 1GHz Dual Core processor with Android 3.0

Honeycomb

Research In Motion PlayBook

Price: TBA

Available: Probably March

Weight 0.9 lbs

Height 5.1 inches

Width 7.6 inches

Depth 0.4 inches

Tech: Runs on 1 GHz dual-core processor with BlackBerry OS

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Price: TBA

Screen: 10.1 inch-display

Weight: 1.3 lbs

Tech: Runs om 1 GHz dual-core processor with Android 3.0

Honeycomb

Available: TBA

ISRO postpones remote sensing satellite’s launch

Not wanting to risk a failure of its lucrative Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and to be doubly sure about the on-flight performance of the various subsystems, India's space agency has postponed the launch of the rocket carrying remote sensing satellite Resourcesat-2 by nearly a month.

"A realistic date of launch could be estimated only by the end of this month as it depends on the results of tests that are being done to know the high temperature tolerance levels of a key component," an official of Indian Space Research Organisation told IANS.

The PSLV launch, scheduled for launch this week, was supposed to sling Resourcesat-2 and two other small satellites - Youthsat and X-Sat - into orbit. Remote sensing satellites like Resourcesat send back pictures and other data for various uses. India is a major player in providing such data in the global market.

The Youthsat, an Indo-Russian micro satellite, carries two payloads - one Indian and the other Russian. Singapore's X-Sat is also a micro satellite.

ISRO officials told IANS the space agency's chairman K. Radhakrishnan wanted to be sure about the parameters of the rocket's subsystems as he was of the view that ISRO cannot afford another failure and that too involving the PSLV rocket.

ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation is earning a sizeable sum launching third party satellites using PSLV rockets.

The Indian space agency's last two missions involving its heavy rocket - Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) - ended as a failure resulting in a total loss of around Rs.600 crore -- cost of two rockets and two satellites.

According to ISRO officials, even if the test results turn out positive and the launch decision is taken, it would require minimum of around 20 days to get ready the PSLV rocket for the launch.

India has the largest constellation of remote sensing satellites in the world providing imageries in variety of spatial resolutions from better than a metre ranging up to 500 metres.

The remote sensing satellites that are operational are: Cartosat-2B, Oceansat-2, RISAT-2, Cartosat-2A, IMS-1, Cartosat-2, Resourcesat-1 and TES.

For some time Resourcesat-2 and Resourcesat-1 would work together before the latter would go into oblivion.

Launched in 2003, Resourcesat-1 has outlived its original mission life of five years.

Compared to Resourcesat-1, the multispectral swath of Resourcesat-2 has been enhanced from 23 km to 70 km based on user needs.

Suitable changes including miniaturisation in payload electronics have been incorporated in Resourcesat-2.

The other remote sensing satellites that ISRO plans to launch are RISAT, Megha-Tropiques, INSAT-3D a meteorological satellite, Astrosat (astronomy satellite to observe celestial bodies)

ISRO suspends telecast of edu channels, students suffer

Indian space agency ISRO has suspended the telecast of popular educational programmes in many states due to an unidentified glitch in its ground equipment, says a senior official. As a result, millions of students have been affected.

"This is the first time we have been asked to suspend conducting virtual classroom teaching for over three weeks since Feb 3, affecting about six million students in 12,000 schools across the state," a top Kerala education department official told IANS.

In a note Feb 12, a copy of which is with IANS, state-run Indian Space Research Organisation directed the Kerala education department to keep the hub used to telecast its 17-hour educational classes in switch off mode due to 'inference issues' in channel 12 of Insat-4CR communication satellite till Friday.

Other states where telecasting of state-funded educational programmes is severely affected include Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Jammu and Kashmir.

The space agency shifted beaming the educational programmes in November last year to Insat-4CR from its dedicated satellite (Edusat) after its mission life ended prematurely. Meant for distant classroom education from school to college levels, Edusat was launched in September 2004.

"Due to malfunctioning of the ground equipment, we are not able to relay the signals from the transponder to telecast the programmes," a senior scientist associated with the satellite communication and navigation programmes (SCNP) said.

"We are trying to locate the problem and fix it in the next three-four days so that we can resume the channel," the scientist added but declined to be identified as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The glitch has, however, not affected the operations of other users of Insat-4CR that was launched in September 2007.

Other users of the satellite include the country's largest telecom player Airtel, Utkarsh channel, Orissa Space Application Centre and Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-Informatics though their programmes are beamed through different transponders.

In addition to the Virtual Classroom Technology on Edusat for Rural Schools (ViCTERS) of the Kerala education department, Visvesvaraya Technology University (VTU) and Vidya Vahini in Karnataka too are users of the satellite for educational programmes.

"This is the second time in 10 days we have been directed to keep the hub switched off for two weeks more. We are not sure if we will be able to resume the programmes after Friday, as there is no further directive from ISRO yet," Anwar Sadath, Kerala IT @ School Project executive director, said.

Launched by former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in 2006, ViCTERS is Kerala's Rs.120-crore IT School Project to provide high speed net connectivity to schools and implement learning management solutions.

Veteran journalist Anand Parthasarathy, who anchors a weekly programme "IT For All" on the channel in Kerala, countered the official claim and wondered how ISRO was adhering to quality of service (QoS) conditions by providing its channels to commercial users from the same satellite, assuring an uptime of 99.9 per cent.

"I find it outrageous that a state-run organisation, which meets its obligations to its paying customers, can with impunity cut off for weeks a vital educational umbilical that assures distance education for millions of students," Parthasarathy asserted.

As ISRO is under cloud over the now annulled controversial deal for allotting scarce S-band spectrum to a private firm (Devas) without bids, its officials and scientists are wary of admitting that shortage of transponders and other priorities are forcing them to shuffle the usage pattern of its channels to users.

With the loss of about 50 transponders due to twin launch failures and operational glitches in Insat-4B during the last 12 months, ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation has been forced to lease a whopping 70 transponders from foreign satellites such as Intelsat and Measat of Malaysia to meet the demand for space-based services from private and state-run agencies.

According to a source associated with the programmes, ISRO is forced to allot the satellite channel meant for Edusat programmes to its commercial end-users, including television channels, radio broadcasters and private/public institutions as part of its service commitments and contractual obligations.

"Due to non-availability of the terrestrial channel, we are suffering a lot, as preparation for the board exams from next month is affected. We conduct revision classes to students appearing in the final exams through the channel, which is also aired by thousands of cable operators as part of the package," Sadath lamented.