GeoEye-1: Specifications, Satellite Images and Technical Information

We became familiar with this thing when it featured us some "Satelite Photos" of the President Barack Obama Inauguration Day on January 20, 2008. Yup yup yup! That satellite is one of the greatest imaging satellite I've know. But wait, let's stop calling it just a satellite because it has its name! Yes, of course! Hehehe. It is called the GeoEye-1, and if you're looking for some information about that satellite, Wikipedia will give you the answer. But aside from Wikipedia, I'm here also to introduce you this great machine.

I posted the GeoEye-1 specifications, satellite images and technical information here!

GeoEye-1 Satellite sensor was developed by GeoEye. It features the most sophisticated technology ever used in a commercial remote sensing system. Wow!

Specifications:

Launch Date:
September 6, 2008
11:50:57 to 11:52:21 AM PST

Camera Modes:
• Simultaneous panchromatic and multispectral (pan-sharpened)
• Panchromatic only
• Multispectral only

Resolution:
0.41 m / 1.34 ft* panchromatic (nominal at Nadir)
1.65 m / 5.41 ft* multispectral (nominal at Nadir)

Metric Accuracy/Geolocation:
CE stereo: 2 m / 6.6 ft
LE stereo: 3 m / 9.84 ft
CE mono: 2.5 m / 8.20 ft
These are specified as 90% CE (circular error) for the horizontal and 90% LE (linear error) for the vertical with no ground control points (GCP's)

Swath Widths & Representative Area Sizes:
• Nominal swath width - 15.2 km / 9.44 mi at Nadir
• Single-point scene - 225 sq km (15x15 km)
• Contiguous large area - 15,000 sq km (300x50 km)
• Contiguous 1° cell size areas - 10,000 sq km
(100x100 km)
• Contiguous stereo area - 6,270 sq km (224x28 km)
(Area assumes pan mode at highest line rate)

Imaging Angle:
Capable of imaging in any direction

Technical Information:

Launch Vehicle: Delta II
Launch Vehicle Manufacturer: Boeing Corporation
Launch Location: Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
Satellite Weight: 1955 kg / 4310 lbs
Satellite Storage and Downlink: 1 Terabit recorder; X-band downlink (at 740 mb/sec or 150 mb/sec)
Operational Life: Fully redundant 7+ year design life; fuel for 15 years
Satellite Modes of Operation:
• Store and forward
• Real-time image and downlink
• Direct uplink with real-time downlink
Orbital Altitude: 684 kilometers / 425 miles
Orbital Velocity: About 7.5 km/sec or 45,000 mi/hr
Inclination/Equator Crossing Time: 98 degrees / 10:30am
Orbit type/period: Sun-synchronous / 98 minutes

Photo and Logo:




What can you say about this great human invention?

Cell Phone Signal Boosters

All of us may agree that Technology is not perfect. We may see that it is good but sometimes technology really sucks! Here in the Philippines, specially on some urban areas, looking and searching for high Cell Phone signal is hard. That's why we are thinking for a cell phone signal booster that can boost our phone's signal to the unreachable level. Lol!

Fortunately, cellphone signal booster is already present nowadays! And it offer the solution to your great phone problem. They run on the expensive side, but you might consider a clear phone call worth the price. These products are compatible with CDMA and GSM phones, but they don't support Nextel handsets.

Here are some of those:

• Wi-Ex zBoost YX510-PCS-CEL

• Cell Ranger Stix

For more information, you can use the Google Search Engine above. :)

Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard

The Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard is a solution for all of you who seeks the REAL portability! Gadgets and electronics of our day are continuing to decrease in their size. As a result of it, they are so small and can sometimes be difficult to see and can be a pain to type on. That's the main reason why you must be using the Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard!

This tiny device uses laser to project a keyboard on to any flat surface. The virtual keyboard will make it easier to type on your small electronics because of its simulated key click sounds and the capability of handling typing speeds of a standard keyboard. This 63-key full-size keyboard can be use to write email on bluetooth enabled PDA or Phones. Its rechargeable battery last up to 120 minutes.

Price??? Below $200...Ouch!

List of Most High-Tech Watches

Here is a list of most high-tech watches according to a some editors.
Which do you prefer to wear?

For the 5th place: Thanko's FMP3 Watch























An MP3 Watch with a 1GB memory, USB 2.0 for easy connectivity and a built in FM Tuner. This is now available in Japan.


4th place: Custom Built Pong Watch















Features a 1.2-inch 96x64 yellow-and-white OLED display and a rechargeable battery.


3rd place: Sony Ericsson Bluetooth Watch


















Capable of displaying caller ID and text messages. Allows you to control your cellphone's music player via the buttons on its side.


2nd place: One-Seg TV/Phone Watch













Capable of watching terrestrial digital TV broadcasts on its 2.4-inch LCD display.

For the 1st place!: Aigo F029
















A digital watch, music player, and video player in one unit. It has a 160x128 OLED display, 1GB of memory and a USB port. Supported media formats include MP3, WMA (DRM), MPEG-4, XviD, and AVI.

New Nintendo DS = Camera + Music Playback

Japanese business news outlet Nikkei Net is reporting that Nintendo will release a successor to the DS Lite by the end of this calendar year. Highlights of the updated feature set include improved wireless functionality (probably for extra-curricular use--not necessary for gaming), an on-board camera, and music playback.

The report goes on to suggest that the internal camera could be used by certain titles, with pictures taken with it somehow incorporated into gameplay. While there are no specifics on pricing, Nikkei Net says the new handheld should go for less than 20,000 yen (approximately $189).

Like with the DS Lite, the new DS will see a Japanese-only release to start, with a worldwide release soon after. We'll have more information on the new handheld as it develops.

Featuring Robots

ASIMO (アシモ, ashimo?) is a humanoid robot created by Honda Motor Company. Standing at 130 centimeters (4 feet 3 inches) and weighing 54 kilograms (119 pounds). The robot resembles a small astronaut wearing a backpack and can walk or run on two feet at speeds up to 6 km/h (4.3 mph).

ASIMO was created at Honda's Research & Development Wako Fundamental Technical Research Center in Japan. It is the current model in a line of eleven that began in 1986 with E0.






Three Law of Robotics
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Tiny is the new Big

The Batangueños are very familiar with Remote Controlled Helicopters. There are advertisements in the radio selling this kind of toy to everyone(Windsor Computers). But come to think of this one, the smallest R/C Helicopter!

The ravenous lust for tinier and tinier flying R/C toys has been temporarily satiated by these minuscule MX-1 copters from Silverlit. We thought we had seen small R/C copters until we were flabbergasted by a helicopter so small it actually fits inside its own remote. The MX-1 is a sharp looking little copter and it has a redesigned remote with smooth slider like controls. Dock the copter in the clear bay at the bottom and charge it up at the same time. Take to the air with confidence knowing that you're piloting the smallest manmade flying device commercially available.

Oracle, Already a Hardware Company?

Computers - Oracle CEO Larry Ellison on Wednesday unveiled its first ever hardware product--a storage server with embedded software designed to work with the company's databases and be used in a grid. The Exadata programmable storage server aims to put database intelligence next to each drive.

The hardware roll-out, which was cooked up in a partnership with Hewlett-Packard, is aimed at the emerging problem of moving data from hard drives to database servers. The storage server took three years of development with HP and has been tested for about a year with key customers such as Google.

Ellison, speaking at Oracle's OpenWorld conference, said large databases are creating a fundamental problem: disk storage systems can't cope with data that has to be moved off of drives to database servers. He called it a "data bandwidth problem."

As data gets larger the slowdowns become more unbearable, at one terabyte you will notice data bandwidth slippage. At 10 terabytes, storage systems crawl. "At one terabyte the problem rears its ugly head and it gets worse every year," said Ellison.

Ellison outlined query processing and how Oracle's embedded software will handle query processing and other functions more efficiently. Oracle is hoping to sell its storage hardware as part of a grid. Drives will be searched in parallel also.

With the move, Oracle is copying Apple's model to a degree. Ellison is arguing that combined hardware and software efforts can be more effective. Instead of the consumer market, where Apple's secret sauce is tightly integrated in hardware and software for Macs and iPods, Oracle is coupling its database software with custom hardware to revamp data centers.

The Exadata storage server will be immediately available on Linux running on Intel, but Ellison noted other flavors for various platforms "are on the way." Oracle's move could be disruptive in the storage market and with players like EMC and IBM, since it can offer a joint-software hardware sale and leverage its HP's partnership. HP and Oracle are also rolling out an "Oracle database machine," designed for customers that don't want to configure the systems. The initial machine has 168 terabytes of disk data and 64 Intel cores.