Conference highlights will include a keynote session on telecommunications issues and papers on topics including tunable devices, smart antennas, microwave superconductivity, microwave filters, microwave photonic signal processing, and millimeter-wave wireless access. Other provisions of the tentative agreement have drawn criticism because they do not classify the cable assets as part of a common carrier that must charge fixed, wholesale prices like phone companies. Thus Time Warner could seek a portion of the advertising revenue generated by the competing Internet service providers. An agreement would still have to be approved by a majority of the FTC's five commissioners. If the negotiations fail, the FTC has said it will challenge the merger in Federal court.
More tests are forthcoming.
Six doublings are needed to get to the edge of space. Myrabo said that laser-propulsion will dramatically reduce the cost of putting spacecraft into orbit. The cost, he said, will be no greater than the price of the electricity needed to run a megawatt closed-cycle electric laser, said Myrabo. He claims his method could reduce the cost of access to space by a factor of 50. The measures come in response to the explosion of a natural gas pipeline in a southeast New Mexico desert that killed 12 campers last August.