Jeff Bezos' space company successfully re-flies, lands rocket

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' space transportation company, Blue Origin, successfully launched and landed a suborbital rocket for a second time, a key step in its quest to develop reusable boosters, the company said on Friday. 

PHOTO: EPA

JAN 23, 20162:22 PM

[CAPE CANAVERAL] Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' space transportation company, Blue Origin, successfully launched and landed a suborbital rocket for a second time, a key step in its quest to develop reusable boosters, the company said on Friday.

The New Shepard rocket and capsule, which is designed to carry six passengers, blasted off from a launch site in West Texas at 11.22am CST (1722 GMT) and landed itself minutes later back on the launch pad, the company said in a statement.

The rocket that flew on Friday was the same vehicle that made a successful test launch and landing two months ago, demonstrating reuse, Mr Bezos said in a statement posted on Blue Origin's website 10 hours after the flight.

"I'm a huge fan of rocket-powered vertical landing," Mr Bezos wrote. "To achieve our vision of millions of people living and working in space, we will need to build very large rocket boosters. And the vertical landing (system) scales extraordinarily well."

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Fellow tech titan Elon Musk's SpaceX in December successfully returned a rocket to a landing pad in Florida after it blasted off on a satellite-delivery mission.

Blue Origin and SpaceX are among a handful of companies working to develop rockets that can fly themselves back to Earth so they can be refurbished and flown again, potentially slashing launch costs.

SpaceX on Sunday attempted to land a rocket on a platform floating in the Pacific Ocean, but one of the booster's four landing legs gave way and the rocket keeled over and exploded.

For now, Blue Origin is flying suborbital rockets, which do not have the speed to put spacecraft into orbit around Earth. The company is working on a more powerful rocket engine, with testing slated to begin this year, Mr Bezos said.

REUTERS

    
 

Google blamed by Oracle attorney for spilled Android secrets

JAN 23, 201611:23 AM

[SAN FRANCISCO] Google Inc has itself to blame that sensitive information about its profit from Android and its revenue-sharing agreement with Apple Inc was aired in open court, according to an attorney for Oracle Corp.

Oracle's lawyer fired back at the search engine giant after it criticised her for disclosing "highly confidential" information last week during a hearing in the database maker's lawsuit in which it accuses Google of using Java software without permission.

The attorney, Annette Hurst, said the statements she made about Android generating US$31 billion of revenue, and Google paying Apple US$1 billion in 2014 to keep its search bar on the iPhone, were in response to questions from a magistrate judge and Google's own lawyer.

She also said none of the three attorneys representing Google at the hearing "even objected to the disclosure of the revenue and profit information."

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"Google was not surprised about the subject matter of this hearing and the scope of what possibly could be discussed," Ms Hurst, of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, said Thursday in a filing in San Francisco federal court.

Ms Hurst's defence of her disclosures came hours after Bloomberg News reported on them, citing a transcript from the Jan 14 hearing posted in the court's electronic docket. That transcript vanished from public view Thursday afternoon with no indication of any ruling barring access to the document.

On Friday, the transcript was ordered temporarily sealed by the magistrate judge who presided over the Jan 14 hearing while she considers Google's renewed request to redact portions of it.

REDACTION REQUEST

Google requested a Feb 25 hearing on the matter.

"Oracle's improper disclosure has resulted in confidential information being leaked to the press, with confidential financial information relating to Android serving as the headline in Internet press reports," Google said in a filing.

Ms Hurst warned that this won't be the last time Oracle cites Google's financial information to make its case that the search engine company owes damages for exploiting Java to develop the world's most popular smartphone platform.

She said Oracle expects to repeatedly cite the information Google is trying to seal as the companies joust over witnesses and evidence in their long-running battle leading up to a trial set for May 9.

"The magnitude of Google's commercial exploitation of the Java APIs through Android is at the core of the dispute, both in connection with fair use and in connection with monetary remedies," she said in Thursday's filing.

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French economy minister doubts China growth data

France's economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, said on Friday he believes China's official figures overstate the true pace of its economic expansion, warning that the tough international climate will not help Europe. 

PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

JAN 23, 20167:57 AM

[DAVOS, Switzerland] France's economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, said on Friday he believes China's official figures overstate the true pace of its economic expansion, warning that the tough international climate will not help Europe.

The minister cast doubt on the reliability of China's figures, including its announcement this week that its economy grew by 6.9 per cent in 2015, the slowest rate in a quarter century.

"I said a few months ago that I don't believe for a second the figures that are being given. I think those that are still being officially announced are probably well above the reality but we just have to live with it," Mr Macron said at a gathering of the business and political elite in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

Concerns that the slowdown in Chinese economic growth may be more brutal than Beijing admits have contributed to deep concern on world financial markets.

The global economic environment is unlikely to be helpful to the French or European economies, the minister said, underscoring the need to pursue economic reforms.

"What is really worrying is to see to what extent we have an economic and geopolitical environment that has become extremely volatile," Mr Macron told reporters.

"Honestly, to be clear, we cannot expect any surprise events to boost French and European growth," he added.

"Truly, if we should focus on something this year it is to reform our economy as radically as possible," said the minister, who is fighting to push through economic reforms including making it easier for shops to open on Sundays.

Besides the slowdown in growth in China, the world's second largest economy after the United States, slumping oil prices were also destabilising petroleum-exporting countries, he said.

Adding to global uncertainties were the problems facing emerging economies, financial market volatility, conflict in the Middle East, the refugee crisis and jihadist terror attacks in Europe, he said.

The Europe Union's internal tensions compounded the difficulties, he said.

"We have the risks of fragmentation, the divergence of our economies, of our political choices, of our collective preferences," he said, evoking notably terrorism and European nations' response to the huge flow of refugees from fighting in the Middle East.

France emerged from three years of economic stagnation last year with growth of more than 1.0 per cent, but 650,000 people have been added to the jobless total since Francois Hollande became president in 2012.

Mr Hollande pledged on Monday to spend more than 2.0 billion euros (S$2.9 billion) on tackling France's "state of economic emergency".

Joblessness, which stands at around 10 per cent or 3.57 million people in the eurozone's second-largest economy, was the "only issue that ranks above security for the French people", the president said.

AFP