The Joe English Tracking range is used to keep track of and communicate with satellites for the military. The base was chosen for its quiet radio environment and isolation, but has now been surrounded by civilization. The days of being able to freely roam the pristine woods, hunting and otherwise communing with nature are long [...]

Salon’s tech guy, Farhad Majoo, gives a good summary of how plans for citywide free WiFi are dying right and left, victim of economics and technical naivete. We’ve mentioned some of these cases already.
In New Hampshire, Nashua and Portsmouth are continuing their plans to start (Nashua) or expand (Portsmouth) downtown WiFi; so far [...]

So says the Portsmouth Herald: "Terry Daidone, co-founder of CertiCell, a company that refurbishes oldcell phones, and owner of Guido Murphy’s at Hampton Beach, struck thedeal this week with 17-year-old George Hotz of New Jersey,who sparked a media and tech-world frenzy last week when he became thefirst person to ‘unlock’ his Apple iPhone, releasing it [...]

An MIT researcher gets the cover story in the latest Science magazine for his lab’s ability to synthesize the toxins produced by "red tide", the algae blooms that shut down beaches. That’s a vital step in understanding and controlling the process - and also, says the MIT press release, in tackling cycstic fibrosis, because "one [...]

Vasectomies are being contemplated for whitetail deer in a state-run wildlife park in Maine, says the Portland Herald. Some folks don’t like the idea because it means no cute fawns in the future. (The story also notes: "A vasectomy does not affect a buck’s ability to go through typical mating behavior, a fall ritual that [...]

The Christa McAuliffe Planetarium invites the public to celebrate her birthday this Sunday (Sept. 2) with a 4 p.m. screening of the documentary film "Christa McAuliffe: Reach for the Stars" and a giant birthday cake served earlier, right after the noon screening of "Our Place in Space".
"Christa McAuliffe: Reach for the Stars" tells the [...]

Three companies that buy prescription records frompharmacies, then mix and match it with other data that they sell to drug firms to help them peddle drugs to doctors, are suing to block a new Vermont law that says doctors must give permission for such data-mining to take place. Here is the Burlington Free-Press story.
Opponents say [...]

Call it NIMBY or call it intelligent community oversight, but a big fight is brewing over a huge ($1.5 billion) plan to build a plant on the coast of Maine that would "gassify" coal and wood to power a 700-MW generator and produce diesel fuel. It would be the biggest commercial project in Maine history, [...]

There is a question about why, on a multi-speed fan, the first position is usually the fastest speed. So, the fan switches from High, Medium to Low from the off position. The reason for this seemingly odd choice is as follows.
Back a few years ago, when I worked for Sylvania Control Devices in Standish, Maine, [...]

As I note in the sidebar to my Nashua Telegraph column today, it has been confirmed that Dutch Elm Disease killed one of the disease-resistant elms on my property. (I wrote about the tree, with an attempt at a video, earlier this summer.) Keene’s Elm Research Institute reports a very small, but potentially worrying, uptick [...]

It’s been - what, seven years? - since "Ginger" became the Segway, but stories like this still act as if Dean Kamen’s baby is a novelty.

This article in the Washington Post (by Blaine Harden, who I knew decades ago during my first newspaper job) details how much farther Japan has gone with broadband than the U.S. It notes certain advantages (Japan is much smaller geographically, making connections easier, and WWII destroyed most of its telecom infrastructure so it could start [...]

New Hampshire Fish & Game says it doesn’t pose a serious threat to the largemouth bass population in the state, and it is no danger to people eating or handling the fish, but the discovery of Large Mouth Bass Virus in fish in Lake Winipesaukee is depressing, nonetheless. Rock snot, milfoil, zebra mussles … is [...]

New Hampshire Business Review says that Cedar Point Communications, a Derry-based VoIP provider, got mention in Inc. magazine as the second-fastest-growing private company in the nation.
From the story: "The 2007 Inc. 500 list measures revenue growth from 2003 through 2006. … A total of 33New Hampshire companies were included on Inc. Magazine

The Union-Leader has a quick story about the latest public effort to bring broadband Internet - in this case. wireless - to parts of the North Country. It’s mostly political promises and short on technical details, and it only talks about a million or so in federal and state funds, which isn’t nearly enough to [...]