ASiQ is gearing up to launch their own in-flight Wi-Fi service in the wake of the Boeing Company's announcement that they will be bowing out of the high-speed broadband communications connectivity markets.

Boeing Internet Service's Connexion is now being phased out mostly due to lackluster returns and high maintenance costs. What ASiQ is offering this time is a low-cost alternative to the aforementioned service.

Ron Chapman, ASiQ's President, stated, "Connexion were too far ahead of their time. There is no comparison with the technology available today to what they launched with back in 2000. Today's aircraft satellite systems weigh less than 60Kg compared to Connexion's reported 350Kg and are a fraction of the cost. Under the Connexion scheme, airlines were reportedly paying $500,000 as an activation fee."

ASiQ is currently offering airlines a new Internet platform over a 5 year lease for as little as $15 per flight. For narrow body aircraft the lease is even lower, reaching fees as low as $5 per flight. ASiQ is banking on this along with its low access fees and Freemailconnection to draw customers in.

The hardware platform is scheduled to be available in 2007 to coincide with the launch of the broadband service and will be on display at the upcoming World Airlines Entertainment Association conference and exhibition to be held in Miami from September 12 to 15.

We mentioned in an article last June Boeing's plans for Connexion. Sadly though, there'll be no blowing of birthday candles for Boeing as their in-flight wireless internet Connexion meets its demise barely a year after its conception.

Boeing formally announced on August 17 that they will be discontinuing its Connexion service, stating that "the market for this service has not materialized as had been expected." Airlines which launched Boeing's Connexion service include China Airlines, Japan Airlines, Korean Air, Singapore Airlines, and Asiana Airlines, to name a few.

Connexion, which used to offer satellite-based wireless Internet access to airline passengers in flight, well, simply did not take off.  The International Herald-Tribune reports that on the average flight, no more than 40 passengers are willing to pay the $9.95 an hour (or $26.95 per flight) to avail of the wireless service and whatever ample money made by Boeing from Connexion simply wasn't sufficient to sustain the service provision.

This only goes to show that companies should not underestimate the consumers in their ability to find ways to avail of wireless services, even in mid-air, at a cheaper cost (or maybe even for free!). Too bad this plane won't be swimming in a blanket of clouds. Unless...

It has been said that there are many available solutions to any particular problem. And so goes NASA Chief Mike Griffin's message in the upcoming 20th Annual Conference on Small Satellites, set to begin on Monday at Utah State University in Logan, Utah.

Griffin wanted to remind everyone that yes, there was a time in our history that all we could make are small satellites. But even though things are getting bigger and we are becoming more capable, we should not abandon these so called "smallsats". Should be asked, he actually prefers to have a network of smallsats doing the same work than a few big ones, calling it as the "distributed approach".

Research and deep space missions are often, if not always, given to smallsats. The NASA chief highlighted, for instance, the Reuven Ramaty High-Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) satellite and its delving into the secrets of solar flares. Similarly important smallsats are: Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) that has produced a new, more detailed picture of the infant universe by measuring the properties of the cosmic microwave background radiation over the full sky; Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) set to launch as a hitchhiker craft onboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2008, as well as future scout missions at Mars.

But probably the most important of Griffin's message, was the discussion on the budget reality of NASA and the infrastructure needed in solar system space. According to him, communication, navigation and other services can be handled by smallsats, which in turn can be afforded by entrepreneurial space firms. This Friday in fact, NASA will unveil its strategy with private space companies to provide commercial orbital transportation services (COTS), starting with a pump prime money of half billion dollars over the next four years.

Unfortunately, the NASA chief also declared that the plan is not a given. “There have been some entrepreneurial space successes, but by and large I think it’s only fair to point out that most of space entrepreneurship exists on viewgraphs,” Griffin said.

On a happy note though, he concluded that should NASA be able to put the money on the table, the time will be right for these space entrepreneurs to help and step up.

For 35 years, scientists have been puzzled as to why deuterium appears to be distributed unevenly in the Milky Way Galaxy. A deuterium by the way is a stable isotope of Hydrogen, present in all the oceans of the earth. However, it also exists in space where it was supposed to be burned forever during star formations; thus, it was considered as a way to trace star formations. The less deuterium, the more stars present in that certain part of the sector.

A recent discovery by NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite seems to be supporting a theory presented by Princeton University's Bruce Draine that deuterium might preferentially be bonded to interstellar dust grains. The satellite is detecting telltale spectral fingerprints of deuterium in the ultraviolet energy range. The higher the interstellar dust, the lower deuterium - and vice versa.

Therefore, the decrease of deuterium in a sector does not necessarily mean that there are more star formations there, but rather that the deuterium may have bonded itself to interstellar dust. Scientists are now rethinking the whole chemical evolution of galaxies.

You might think it's no biggie, but imagine growing up thinking you're a woman and later on finding out that you're actually a man biologically (it happens!)? If what Draine thinks is true, it could shake up the very foundations of existing knowledge about space. Now that a more credible institution is supporting his claims, you might want to take a look under those pants, errr, skies.

In the past few years, satellite navigation systems - with their built-in GPS technology - have been a must-have for car drivers who take long journeys in the past few years. But according to CNET, London cabbies, who take what can be considered as the hardest taxi exam known as "The Knowledge", are unimpressed.

"I would say take-up has been about 4 or 5 percent, maybe higher for drivers doing the airport runs and those doing jobs in the London suburbs," said Bob Oddy, general secretary of the London Taxi Drivers' Association.

London taxi drivers seem to prefer their own brainpower when it comes to navigating one of the most congested cities in the world. Maybe the horror stories of GPS systems leading cabbies up one-way streets and taking you to the wrong place have warned them off - or maybe it's just their confidence in 'The Knowledge'.

Would-be cabbies have to learn 320 standard routes and be familiar with the city's tiny streets, roads and avenues, as well as countless shortcuts and public buildings. So next time you visit London, get in a cab without a Sat Nav, it might just get you to where you want to be quicker.

Here's something you don't see every day (like most things on QJ Gadgets) - a wristwatch that does much more than just tell the time. Instead, this $500 watch from Finnish company Suunto is actually a Global Positioning System reciever; or GPS device to you an' me. It works much like the Sat Nav you can get in cars, pinpointing your position using satellites in orbit of the earth making it much more accurate than a map. Of course, navigators have been using GPS receivers for years, but none quite as small and functional as this.

Sunnto's GPS watch clings to your wrist, and so is virtually impossible to loose, as well as being great for the battleground. First Lt. Nick E. Thomas of the Wisconsin Army National Guard, who is on active duty in Iraq, uses the watch, called an X9i, on missions and daily operations. The watch allows him to get a GPS fix on his position in less than 30 seconds, and shows him how to get back to base without hindering his movement, making it ideal for battle situations.

Not only does the X9i have a GPS receiver, but it also features a thermometer and barometer to help anticipate changes in the weather and an alarm. As for the watch features it can also tell you the time until sunrise and sunset, again, great for leisure and great for battle conditions that Nick Thomas may run into whilst serving in Iraq.

Here's the full list of features:

• Altimeter: altitude, vertical speed, altitude alarm, thermometer
• Barometer: Sea level pressure, absolute pressure, weather trend graph, temperature, weather alarm
• Compass: Bearing, graphic compass rose, bearing tracking
• GPS: Resolution 1m / 3 ft, 12 channels
• Watch: Calendar, 3 alarms with date option, dual time, stopwatch
• Menu-based user interface familiar from mobile phones
• Water resistant to 10 bar
• Power supply: USB cable and a universal power supply
• PC interface software + USB cable

We found the Suunto X9i for $499 from Backcountry.com with free shipping. This would be great if we were serving in Iraq, but since we aren't, it's just a little too expensive for our leisurely tastes. But then again, that's just us; if you're among the Paris Hiltons and Olsens of the world, go ahead and burn some cash.

A Japanese civilian communications satellite and a French military communications satellite was put into orbit via an Ariane-5 rocket. The launch happened in French Guiana, at Europe's space base in Kourou, on the northeast coast of South America.

Aboard the blasted rocket was a JCSAT-10 satellite for Japan's JSAT Corporation. Built by Lockheed Martin in the United States, the satellite - released into the orbit twenty-seven minutes after the launch - was designed to broadcast high definition television to the Asia-Pacific region. Explained by JSAT Corporation officials, it would be the "Sky Perfect TV" system that broadcasts 251 television channels.

Five minutes later, Syracuse 3B, a military communications satellite built by a European industrial consortium for France's Defense Ministry, was released as well into space. According to the French Defense Procurement Agency (DGA), it was necessary to have a dedicated military communications satellite network as satellites shared with civilian operators risked being immobilized by relatively unsophisticated means.

The Ariane-5 rocket was the third to be launched this year.

At one of your trips on board Air France, you may notice that "No Smoking" signs are now replaced by "No Mobile" signs - a trend being adapted by many other airlines. Air France, specifically, will only allow mobile usage during flights using special satellite systems, at a cost of about $2.50 a minute. This is one of the number of solutions that are being developed both to improve detection of interference and to enable the safe use of wireless devices in flight.

The use of mobile phones on airplanes in-flight is prohibited worldwide. Usage of other portable electronic devices (PEDs) is also prohibited during takeoff and landing. The reasons, though, remain ambiguous, one of which is that by operating a device that will interfere with the aircraft systems and disrupt the two-way radio used by pilots, a person is endangering the lives of other aircraft passengers.

Whether this reason - along with other reasons - is true or not, you may want to think twice before you turn on your mobile phone while inside the aircraft.

Well Madden NFL 07 has received another trailer on the Marketplace today in the form of the Pay-Per-View Trailer. The video us an early look at the ESPN Pay Per View of "Inside Madden NFL 07" that will be available on cable and satellite providers starting August 4th. When the Pay-Per-View event comes out it will cost $19.99 for the hour long special. The video preview weighs in at 117.43MB. Am I the only one that thinks EA is going overboard with having a pay-per-view event on the making of a yearly football game? Well if you want to see the trailer, go ahead and check it out by downloading it on the Marketplace.

Paper, an exhibit at the Perth Institute for Contemporary Art, features eight artists who work with paper. "In Paper, the context of paper shifts from a communication device to being culpable for our understanding of the world." And one of those communication devices would be Matthew Gardiner's robo-flowers. The five robotic flowers open and close as satellite beams from SMS messages bounce off their origami petals. Is this the end of the age old practice of talking to plants like a crazy person?