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If the rare event that something goes wrong on a space shuttle mission, NASA is ready with a rescue plan that would undoubtedly make many Hollywood directors and tough boy actors piss their pants.

Picture this, if you will...

The main shuttle mission, Atlantis, experiences another foam incident, and the heat shield is damaged beyond repair. Upon acknowledgment of the problem, NASA scrambles a four-person astronaut rescue team, which must prepare for launch in the span of a few days. Normally, as you know, launches are complex affairs that require months of preparation. But no bother. The Endeavour lifts off successfully and the rescue team screams into space In fact, Endeavour is put on a T-Minus seven day liftoff count once the Atlantis launches anyway, so it's technically ready to go from minute one.

Once in orbit, the rescue team shuttle captain must pilot his craft to within a few dozen yards or the ailing shuttle. Once there, the robot arm is sent out to grasp the gimped shuttle, thereby serving as a life line for the crew. On board the rescue craft are extra spacesuits and gear, so that the entire seven-person Atlantis crew can spacewalk to Endeavour over the course of a few days.

Endeavour, now packed to the gills, must then return home. As for Atlantis, she will be given a proper scuttling by a crew back at mission control. Using a remote control system, they will ditch the shuttle in the Pacific, and try to recover its debris later.

The Endeavour crew must then check their ship for damage, and hope beyond hope that there isn't any. There's no other shuttle on the pad, you see, and the ISS is at an orbit that will be unreachable for either shuttle during this mission (Note: Other missions have had the ISS as a backup plan due to shared orbits and other such details).

SproutBox is a 3-month program for Web entrepreneurs. It picks four startups per cycle and brings them to their offices (called “The Box”) in Bloomington, Indiana. Once there, the startup and its entrepreneurs work with several SproutBox teams in order to build the product, promote, add users, and foster a community.

The startups SproutBox is most interested in are Web companies with subscription-based models, although they are listening to pitches from any company with a web, mobile, or desktop focus. Startups have several months to get their applications together - they’re not due until August 8th.

SproutBox, understanding that some entrepreneurs may be skeptical of the model, already has two projects out of the pipeline: DecideAlready, a group decision collaboration tool, and CheddarGetter,a online subscription billing service in beta. While different tools, both have a similarities in design and interface.

Online sales at Argos have reached £1.1bn for the year ending February 2009, with that channel now representing 26 per cent of all sales at the retailer.

According to Home Retail Group, parent company of Argos, web sales for the online and catalogue business saw a 22 per cent increase from £900m the previous year.

Some £700m of all online sales at Argos were generated through its Check & Reserve service and also rose from the £500m posted in the previous year.

However, total group sales were down one per cent to £5.89bn, with a decrease of 4.8 per cent for like-for-like sales at Argos. The group's Homebase unit reported that sales decreased by 10.2 per cent.

"In a particularly difficult trading environment, we have managed our costs and cash very effectively to limit the impact on profits. This focus has put us in an even better position to trade through another tough year while further improving our competitive position,” said Terry Duddy, Home Retail Group chief executive.

“We will continue to develop our broad product range, benefit further from our advantaged sourcing operations and invest in our multi-channel operations to strengthen our position as the UK's leading home and general merchandise retailer," said Duddy.

New research forecasting the global biometrics market through 2012 has been released by RNCOS. The report, called Global Biometric Forecast to 2012, gets into subjects such as identifying key regions such as North America and Asia-Pacific and biometric modes such as iris recognition for growth as well as potential issues that must be attended to for the market to grow at its expected compound annual growth rate of 20% each year.

Further, the report identifies specific industries it expects to be the major consumers of biometric technologies in the coming years. Specifically, it expects the financial and health care industries to be topping out that list.

Minnesota has enacted the "Toxic Free Kids Act," which will ban bisphenol-A (BPA) in sippy cups and baby bottles. Minnesota joins Suffolk County, New York, which banned BPA earlier this year. Other states and counties, as well as the federal government, are considering bans on the potentially dangerous chemical, which has been linked to all sorts of adverse health effects. The Minnesota ban goes into effect in 2011.

Whenever you use a fan most of the energy it consumes is wasted airing areas that don’t really need it. Alex Tyack has designed a concept fan that is portable, runs on solar energy and also ensures that you don’t waste any energy by aerating your furniture. The fan comes with a circular air outlet that the user can position at the exact area where air is needed, which can be your face or even a freshly printed design.

The fan is designed with an “Eco-Warning system” that alerts the user when the charge in the fan’s batteries is about to finish. The fan can also be connected to the mains for better performance or to use the fan’s built-in heating system.

American Reliance (AMREL), a developer of biometric systems, has announced they will be demonstrating their new biometric handheld at the 2009 Annual Biometrics and Forensics Summit in California. The device is aptly named the Handheld Biometric System 2 (HBS2) and touts the same level of ruggedness as its competitors but at a fraction of the weight as the HBS2 only weighs two pounds.

The HBS2 is capable of real-time matching of face, fingerprint, and iris patterns as well as recording latent fingerprint and forensic debris with a 1000 dpi camera. The device has many other facets that were designed specifically with military use in mind as they were the direct results of needs reported from military personnel that were not being met by currently available handheld biometric devices.

Zvetco Biometrics, a developer of biometric technology, has announced the release of their new USB finger print reader called the Verifi P6000 USB Fingerprint Reader. As an upgrade to its P5000 predecessors, the P6000 has increased gray-scale detail and contrast. Additionally, the P6000 utilizes the TouchChip TCS1 Fingerprint Sensor from biometric developer UPEK.

Zvetco’s Verifi P6000 is expected to be targeted at government agencies for computer-based logical access control. In addition to it’s upgraded imaging capabilities, the reader is compatible out of the box with BioCert, BioScrypt, ActivIdentity and multiple other applications that support UPEK’s sensors.

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster is threatening to file criminal charges against Craigslist if they don’t remove the “erotic services” section from the S.C. section.

McMaster said in a letter to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster that the section is used as vehicle to advertise and solicit prostitution.  He also accused the service of not following though on the commitments it made to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and 43 AGs around the country back in November.  At the time Craigslist agreed to improve measures to prevent its service from being misused.  It began requiring advertisers to provide a valid phone number and pay for ads in the erotic services section with a credit card.  It also said it would donate all revenues gained from that section to charity.

Craigslist responded to McMaster in a blog post:

We look forward to speaking directly with Attorney General McMaster about his concerns, and finding ways to address them without compromising the utility of craigslist for South Carolinians, or anyone’s Constitutional rights.  However, we see no legal basis whatsoever for filing a lawsuit against craigslist or its principals and hope that the Attorney General will realize this upon further reflection.

This is not the first time the erotic services section has come under fire.  The service recently met with AGs from Missouri, Connecticut, and Illinois who all want the section removed in their states as well, and last month a Boston University student was arrested and charged with murdering a woman he arranged to meet through the erotic services section.  He’s also accused of kidnapping and beating two other woman he met through the site. 

It looks like Craigslist is in hot water.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they found themselves handed a lawsuit by the family of the woman who was murdered.  Despite their repeated claims that removing the section would violate Constitutional rights, it’s clear something needs to be done to make the service safer and more accountable if it is going to continue.  It’s not as if they are the only ones offering such a section though.  Pick up any weekly paper like the Phoenix or Village Voice and you’ll find a similar section.  However it appears the online nature of Craigslist seems to make it more attractive-and as we’ve seen, deadly.

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