The first Apple iPhone was introduced on January 9, 2007 and went on sale in June 2007. Here’s the original iPhone sitting in it’s charging dock. (Photo: Andrew via Wikimedia Commons)

On Wednesday, January 9, the iPhone turned 6 years old. On that day in 2007 Apple’s late visionary leader Steve Jobs took the stage at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco to address the Apple faithful about a new and highly anticipated product the company was unveiling.

Describing it as a “leap frog product that is way smarter than any mobile device that has ever been and super easy to use,” Jobs introduced the first iPhone to the world.

It wasn’t the very first smartphone – some in the communications industry credit IBM’s Simon Personal Communicator released in 1994 as the first – nor was it the only smartphone on the market at the time – in 2007, Blackberry and Palm devices were all the rage. But the release of Apple’s iPhone really caught the public’s attention and took the smartphone further into the mainstream with its advanced technology and multi-function abilities.

Apple boasted about the capabilities of its new device saying at the time that the iPhone combined three products into one—a new type of mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and an innovative Internet communications device that provided desktop-like email, web browsing, searching and maps.

People wait in line at an Apple Store, in Salt Lake City Utah, to be among the first to get their hands on the new iPhone 5 on Sept. 21, 2012. (Photo: AP)

Between its introduction in January and its release in June 2007, excitement took hold with the iPhone quickly becoming the “must have” device weeks before it even was put on sale.  The iPhone became an instant hit with consumers selling over a million devices within its first 74 days on the market, according to Apple.

In the years since, Apple has released newer versions of the iPhone that gave its users even more functionality. One of the most popular new features included the 2011 introduction of “Siri” in its iPhone 4S. Apple described Siri as “an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking.”  Siri interacts and communicates with the user through normal speech: a user just asks Siri a question and “she” answers back via a synthesized voice.

The first smartphone powered by the Android system was the HTC Dream that first went on sale in October 2008 (Photo: Marcus Sümnick via Wikimedia Commons)

While Apple has sold millions of iPhones over the years, the popular smartphone has not been without its critics. For example, when it was first released in the US, Apple had an exclusive agreement with AT & T wireless, meaning the much coveted iPhone could only work on the AT & T wireless system. This arrangement didn’t sit too well with a lot of US consumers, saying it severely limited their choice of wireless carriers to just one. Other complaints about the iPhone since its initial release have included various difficulties that users had in operating the device or about a number of glitches or problems with issues such as software updates or the phones themselves.

As with any successful product, it didn’t take long until Apple competitors like Samsung, HTC, LG and others quickly sprang into action to develop and release their own advanced mobile devices they hoped would dethrone the iPhone as the most popular smartphone.

Despite the release of several imitators, Apple’s iPhone continued its reign as the top smartphone. But dark clouds were forming in the horizon for Apple as word of a new mobile phone operating system began to spread. The web-search engine giant Google had been talking about getting into the mobile telecommunications market since its 2005 acquisition of Android, Inc.; the company that designed and developed the new mobile device operating system. The buzz on the street at the time indicated that the new Android operating system just might be more advanced and superior to what Apple was running on its iPhone.

The popular Android powered Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone. (Photo: Superzen via Wikimedia Commons)

The Android operating system was unveiled in November 2007; just five months after the first iPhones went on sale. The first mobile phone powered by the Android system, the HTC Dream, was released in October 2008.

Google offered the Android system with an open source code and a somewhat lenient licensing arrangement, making it much easier for software that would run on the Android system to be written, modified and distributed.

So far, according to recent research statistics, about 700,000 software applications or “apps” have been developed for mobile devices running on the Android system.   But, Apple continues to lead Android with a reported 1,000,000 apps developed for the iPhone.

The Android powered Samsung Galaxy S III and Apple’s iPhone 4S are two of the most popular smartphones being sold today.

The fight for market domination among smartphone manufacturers continues to fuel research and development of even much more advanced and sophisticated mobile devices.

The amount of space junk floating around the Earth grows every year, and increasingly can pose risks to spacecraft orbiting the planet.

This computer generated graphic provided by NASA shows objects in Earth orbit that are currently being tracked. Space junk has made such a mess of Earth’s orbit that experts say we may need to finally think about cleaning it up. (AP)

In the United States, NASA’s Orbital Debris Program (ODP) at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, keeps an eye on the ever-expanding junkyard of space.

“We define orbital debris as any man-made object orbiting the Earth that is no longer serving a useful purpose,” says Gene Stansbery, project manager for the ODP. “That can be anything from very large rocket bodies and dead satellites that are no longer useful, all the way to very tiny particles that are eroded from the painted surfaces of spacecraft or rockets, the entire size range.”

In the weightless and friction-free environment of orbit, it’s not so much the size of all this junk floating in the Earth’s orbit, but also the speeds at which it travels, according to Stansbery.

“If you look at orbital velocities and the average collision velocity, you’re talking on the order of 11 kilometers a second,” he says. “So even a small paint fleck can damage a sensitive component for spacecraft.”

An example occurred during STS 7, when a window for the space shuttle had to be replaced for the first ever time after being damaged by a .2 millimeter paint fleck. If that level of damage can be caused by a particle that small, one can imagine the threat posed by larger orbiting refuse.

Given that space exploration has been an on-going venture since the 1950s, there’s a lot of old stuff circling the planet, and much of it can pose serious risks.

“The Department of Defense has a world-wide network that can track objects down to about 10 centimeters in size in low Earth orbit,” says Stansbery. “For those objects, there’s about 22,000 that they’re tracking. You go down to about one centimeter and larger, you’re talking about 500,000, and if you get smaller than that and you’re talking into the millions.”

Some of that stuff, especially in low-Earth orbit, will eventually fall back to the planet, much of it burning up on re-entry. However, for junk found at higher altitudes, around 1,000 kilometers or so, Stansbery says it could remain in orbit for decades, maybe even hundreds of years. For altitudes even higher than that, junk could remain for centuries…or longer.

A white arrow points to damage on a piece of a solar array from the Russian space station Mir. The array had been damaged by a miniscule piece of space junk. (AP)

Major collisions are rare, but they do happen. On Feb. 10, 2009, two large satellites, the Iridium 33 and the Kosmos 2251, collided at a speed of about 42,000 kilometers per hour. The collision spread about 1,000 pieces of debris capable of being tracked across the skies, where much of it remains.

In March of this year, one of those pieces came uncomfortably close to the International Space Station. So close, in fact, that as a precaution, the ISS’ six-member crew waited for a time in the Soyuz emergency exit capsule, just in case a collision occurred and they had to abandon ship.

More worrisome, says Stansbery, is that the crew only had 24 hours notice of the possible collision. “Unfortunately, that is too short a time to plan a re-avoidance maneuver for the space station,” he says.

The threat posed by space junk isn’t new; space scientists have been concerned about it since the 1970s. However, with more rockets taking off, more satellites in the sky, and more spacecraft – such as from China or private firms like SpaceX and Blue Origin – the skies are getting more crowded all the time.

This week on VOA’s “Science World” radio program, you can hear the complete interview with Gene Stansbury on space junk, as well as other features on the science behind children’s snack food choices, the lingering effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on corral communities, and a new web-based computer program that helps doctors save lives. Take a look at the right hand column for scheduled times.

(Written by Doug Bernard,  Digital Frontiers Editor)

This NASA image shows the work site of the Curiosity rover on Mars. The first test of Martian soil by Curiosity shows no definitive evidence that the red planet has the chemical ingredients to support life. (NASA)

NASA’s artist rendering of Voyager 1 at the edge of the solar system. The long-running spacecraft has entered the fringes of the solar system which is thought to be the last layer before the beginning of interstellar space, or the space between stars. Mission chief scientist Ed Stone says Voyager 1 will be the first manmade object to leave the solar system. (AP Photo/NASA)

A 68-mile-diameter crater, large indentation at center, in the north polar region of Mercury which has been shown to harbor water ice, thanks to measurements by the Messenger spacecraft. (AP Photo/NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)

Joe Wasilewski works with a captured Nile crocodile, caught near his Homestead, Fla., home. State wildlife officials have given their agents a rare order to shoot to kill in the hunt for a young and potentially dangerous Nile crocodile loose near Miami. “They get big. They’re vicious. The animals are just more aggressive and they learn that humans are easy targets,” says Wasilewski, a reptile expert and veteran wrangler. (AP)

The Plosky Tolbachnik volcano erupts in Russia’’s Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula. The volcano, located on the peninsula’s eastern coast, is erupting for the first time in 36 years. (AP)

In an undated photo, Glenn Storrs, left, helps haul a dinosaur fossil on a contraption made from two hospital gurneys and a motorcycle wheel, dubbed the dino wheel, near Pryor Mountains in Montana. After 10 years of painstakingly unearthing scattered dinosaur fossils at a site along the base of the Pryor Mountains, Storrs believes he has finally figured out how the bones arrived at their final resting place 145 million to 150 million years ago. His theory is that a group of young dinosaurs, probably migrating with adults, died of thirst while searching for a wetter environment.
   (AP Photo/Courtesy of Cincinnati Museum Center via The Billings Gazette)

A shadow self-portrait taken by NASA’’s Opportunity rover on the Martian surface. The solar-powered spacecraft has been exploring a huge crater in the Martian southern hemisphere and has detected what appear to be clay minerals. (AP Photo NASA)

Multiple dust plumes are seen blowing off the coasts of Iran and Pakistan in this NASA handout image taken Nov. 29, 2012. These images document the movement of the plumes southward over the Arabian Sea. (REUTER/NASA/Jeff Schmaltz)

The moon Tethys (in the upper left of the image) is seen next to Saturn in this NASA image taken from the Cassini spacecraft on Aug. 19, 2012 and released Dec. 3, 2012. Saturn’s rings appear to dwarf Tethys (660 miles, or 1,062 kilometers across) although scientists believe the moon to be many times more massive than the entire ring system combined. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.5 million miles (2.4 million kilometers) from Saturn. (REUTERS/NASA)

n this photo made Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012, The Plosky Tolbachnik volcano erupts in Russia on Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012, for the first time in 36 years. (AP)

Games and applications designed for computers and platforms such as smartphones and tablets have become important tools in providing an effective, yet fun learning experience. (Photo: Jesse Knish Photography for GDC Online via Flickr/Creative Commons)

Educators, businesses, public service organizations and media outlets have all discovered that developing and offering a variety of computer and smartphone games and applications is a successful way to engage and communicate with their audiences as well as providing challenging, but entertaining learning opportunities.

The U.N. Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) also sees the growing value and importance that these digital games offer, so they recently launched “Create UNAOC 2012.” It’s a global competition that will award cash prizes to creators and developers of computer games and apps that promote intercultural dialogue and understanding.  The Voice of America is also a partner with the UNAOC for this contest.

With “Create UNAOC 2012″ in mind, more than 20 VOA Journalists, web editors, computer program developers and experts in developing educational games — like Alex Chisholm from the Learning Games Network and Scot Osterweil of the MIT Education Arcade — gathered last Thursday (10/11/12), at VOA headquarters in Washington for something called a “Game Jam.”

A Game Jam is a gathering of people with a variety of backgrounds and skills, along with experts like Chisholm and Osterweil who discuss goals and brainstorms game ideas that would offer an entertaining and fun playing experience, but also provide a unique learning opportunity as well.

The participants in the VOA Game Jam were divided into teams that worked on coming up with new and fresh ideas for games that will be able help VOA effectively communicate and better connect with its ever-changing worldwide audience.

With the Game Jam in full swing, and the participants fully engaged in brainstorming ideas for new games, organizers said that there were at least five or six good ideas for possible game development.

VOA Game Jam participants listen to a presentation by Scot Osterweil, Creative Director of the MIT Education Arcade on how to create games that not only teach but are also entertaining and fun. (Photo: VOA)

The room, where the Game Jam was being held, buzzed with exciting and animated discussion as the participants worked out their ideas, talked about how their games should look, and function as well as what would be needed to make them fun.

Among the some of the game ideas that were discussed was an immigration game, where the player does a little role playing and virtually experiences what an immigrant could face in moving to a new country.  Another, from VOA’s “Learning English,” proposes a fun way to learn the English language.

After last Thursday’s brainstorming session, the proposed games will be evaluated, with the most promising game ideas selected to continue development into a finished product that will be made available to the VOA audience.

With the Voice of America broadcasting in more than 40 languages, the games selected to be developed could be produced in a number of different languages.  But since it represents VOA’s largest web audience, it’s probable that several of the games will be in English.

While developing and producing a finished game product is an involved process, it’s hoped that it will take about two to three months to develop and produce a finished game. The first games could be released sometime in early 2013.

If you’re 13 or older, you too can take part in the “Create UNAOC 2012″ and be eligible for a nice cash prize.  Just visit the Create UNAOC 2012 website for more information.  Keep in mind, though, that you’ve got only to the end of November to get your entry in for this contest.

First color image of the Martian landscape returned from curiosity 08-06-12 (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems)

On its first full solar day on Mars, the Curiosity rover is under going a month-long series of health checks before getting down to its mission of exploring the chemistry of Mars.

Curiosity isn’t expected to drill its first drill hole in a Mars rock for about another month or two, according to Rob Manning, the Mars mission’s chief engineer.

However, we’re already getting some interesting images of the red planet.

Almost two hours after Monday’s  touchdown, the rover started snapping pictures of its new home in  Mars’ Gale Crater.

But even before that, some of Curiosity’s trip through the thin Martian atmosphere and subsequent landing were caught on camera by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling the planet for over six years.

Curiosity and its parachute were spotted by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity descended to the surface on 0500 UTC 08-06-12. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, caught Curiosity while it was still connected to its almost 16-meter parachute as it descended to its landing site.

A camera aboard  Curiosity itself took a sequence of self-portraits of its trip through the Martian atmosphere as well.

According NASA, the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) snapped over 1,500 images which are being stored within Curiosity’s onboard memory banks.  When those images are put together at the highest resolution, they should produce a video showing the rover’s descent from the time its heat shield was released, all the way until it touched down on Mars.

This stop-motion video shows 297 frames from the Mars Descent Imager aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover as it descended to the surface of Mars. (Video: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Until  we get that detailed video of Curiosity’s descent and touchdown, we’ll have to be satisfied with  297 color, low-resolution images the rover recently beamed back to Earth.

This image taken by Curiosity shows Mars’ Mount Sharp. The rover’s shadow can also be seen. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

“The image sequence received so far indicates Curiosity had, as expected, a very exciting ride to the surface,” says Mike Malin from Malin Space Systems in San Diego, the imaging scientist for the Mars mission. “But as dramatic as they are, there is real other-world importance to obtaining them. These images will help the mission scientists interpret the rover’s surroundings, the rover drivers in planning for future drives across the surface, as well as assist engineers in their design of forthcoming landing systems for Mars or other worlds.”

Other activities planned for the Curiosity today include setting up its high-gain antenna, collecting science data from the system’s Radiation Assessment Detector and Rover Environmental Monitoring Station instruments, as well as picking up  additional imagery of its surroundings.

This is all part of the mission’s characterization activity phase, which tests how Curiosity’s subsystems and instruments are functioning after landing and within the environment and gravitational field of Mars.

Colorized image of “Medusoid”, the tissue-engineered jellyfish, “swimming” in a container of ocean-like saltwater. (Photo: Caltech and Harvard University)

By combining rat cardiac muscle cells with silicone, scientists have  bioengineered a free-swimming jellyfish which could eventually lead to improved treatment for heart disease.

Researchers from Harvard and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) say  their creation shows  it’s possible to reverse-engineer a variety of muscular organs and simple life forms, allowing for a broader definition of what counts as synthetic life.

They’re hoping their work could one day lead to medical devices, such as pacemakers, which can live independently within the human body, operating without the need for power sources such as batteries.

The jellyfish was selected for this project because it propels itself through water by pumping,  which is similar to the way a human heart moves blood throughout the body.

“A big goal of our study was to advance tissue engineering,” says Janna Nawroth, a biology doctoral student  at Caltech and lead author of the study.

Top: Comparison of real jellyfish and silicone-based Medusoid. Bottom: Comparison of muscle architecture in the two systems (Image: Janna Nawroth)

In fashioning their faux jellyfish, the researchers replicated the functions of a jellyfish, such as swimming and creating feeding currents, instead of trying to duplicate all of the swimming creature’s biological elements.

The team studied jellyfish propulsion in depth before designing their creation, named “Medusoid,” after the Medusa jellyfish and the  snake-haired monster Medusa from Greek mythology.

Researchers discovered a sheet of cultured rat heart muscle tissue would contract when electrically stimulated in a liquid setting, making it  ideal raw material for their creation.

They fashioned a silicone polymer into a thin membrane to create the body of their creature, which looked like a small eight-arm jellyfish.

Once the rat heart muscle tissue was incorporated into its body, the artificial jellyfish was  placed into a container of electrically charged ocean-like salt water. It was shocked into swimming with synchronized muscle contractions that imitate those of real jellyfish.  According to the researchers, the muscle cells began to contract on their own before any electrical power was even applied.

“I was surprised that with relatively few components—a silicone base and cells that we arranged—we were able to reproduce some pretty complex swimming and feeding behaviors that you see in biological jellyfish,” said John Dabiri, a professor of aeronautics and bioengineering at Caltech.

The researchers aren’t done yet. They hope to design a completely self-contained system which would be able to sense and set itself into motion using internal signals, like human hearts do.  They also, eventually, would like to see their creation go out and gather food on its own.

The Mobile Music Touch is a wireless, musical glove which may improve sensation and motor skills for people with paralyzing spinal cord injuries. (Photo: Georgia Institute of Technology)

Researchers in Georgia have developed a glove which seems to improve touch sensation and motor skills for people with severe spinal cord injuries.

The Mobile Music Touch (MMT) looks like a regular workout glove, except for the small box mounted on the back.

Along with a piano keyboard, the glove is used to help people with spinal cord injuries learn to play the piano by vibrating the player’s fingers to show which keys they should play.

Some people who used the musical glove for these specialized piano lessons experienced improved sensation in their fingers after their  sessions.

Researchers at Georgia Tech – the Georgia Institute of Technology – along with Atlanta’s Shepard Center, worked with volunteers with spinal cord injuries over eight weeks.

The volunteers suffered their injury at least a year before this study and had very little feeling or movement in their hands.

The  participants were required to practice playing the piano for a half hour, three times a week for eight weeks.  Half of them used the MMT glove to practice and the other half did not.

Researchers also had the participants wear the glove at home after or before practice, for two hours a day, five days a week, feeling only the vibration from the device.

The researchers hoped the volunteers would receive some rehabilitative effects from passively wearing the device while doing regular, everyday activities.

“After our preliminary work in 2011, we suspected that the glove would have positive results for people with SCI,” said Tanya Markow, the project leader. “But we were surprised by how much improvement they made in our study. For example, after using the glove, some participants were able to feel the texture of their bed sheets and clothes for the first time since their injury.”

(Video: Georgia Institute of Technology)

Along with the specially-equipped glove, the Mobile Music Touch system works with a computer, MP3 player or smart phone.

The system is then programmed with a song which is wirelessly linked to the glove.  As the song plays, its musical notes are illuminated on the piano keys and the device then sends vibrations to “tap” the corresponding fingers.

After the eight weeks, the researchers had their volunteers perform a number of grasping and sensation tests so they could measure for any improvement.

The researchers found that those who used the MMT system performed significantly better than the others who just learned the piano normally.

“Some people were able to pick up objects more easily,” said Markow. “Another said he could immediately feel the heat from a cup of coffee, rather than after a delay.”

Markow believes the increased motor abilities are due to renewed brain activity that sometimes can become dormant in people with spinal cord injuries.

She thinks that the vibrations produced by the MMT system might trigger activity in the hand’s sensory cortex, which leads to firing in the brain’s motor cortex.

Markow would like to take her research with the MMT further to include functional MRI results.