Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER-- Atlantis lifted off Friday at 11:29 A.M. Eastern time after a last-moment hold at 31 seconds on its 33rd and final mission--both for it and NASA's 30-year-old manned space shuttle program, putting on hiatus the era of human access to low Earth orbit on board U.S. spacecraft.

Heres a look at the top four contenders for developing the next spacecraft, how much funding they have received through the program, and how close they are to sending a crewed flight into orbit. After the shuttle Atlantis makes its final flight this summer, NASA will shut down the program responsible for 135 manned space flights since 1981. Now, NASA is turning to commercial companies to develop space-flight capabilities through its Commercial Crew Development program, which has doled out $320 million in funds since 2009.

These days, it takes nearly a half-dozen apps to keep up with all our fragmented social networks. But a new app out today called Banjo aims to solve those disconnections by integrating all your social networks into one streamlined service. We shoot out quick updates to friends on Facebook.

The pen and paper are losing their dominance in boardrooms across North America. Instead, workers are meeting with iPads in tow. While the laptop is often considered to be an intrusive device on the table, since the mere opening of the screen partially blocks its owner, Apple's slick tablet is a much more welcome face

Check out the famous BBQ chain of Austin, Texas, Salt Lick Bar-B-Que , while waiting for your flight at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. The menu reads like a Southern comfort food Bible: beef, pork, sausage, and turkey. Choose from sandwiches or full plates—and don't forget the sides, which include baked beans, coleslaw, and potato salad

Meet the 2.0 car service: Uber is a start-up that lets you book a stylish ride from a smartphone app. Imagine your flight arrives four hours later than expected.

About the last person anyone expected to see atop the leaderboard at the Senior PGA Championship was Japan's Kiyoshi Murota.

In the previous blog entry my colleague Jim Haw gave the rationale for our work on Guam. After a week on Guam we will make the two-hour flight to Palau. The highest level of species biodiversity occurs in the Indo-West Pacific region, with nearly 2 percent of the world’s reefs distributed throughout Micronesia

%excerpt% More here: Running a Mom-Friendly Business

When Air France Flight 447 disappeared in June 2009, it was in the middle of the tropical Atlantic and had likely entered a mesoscale convective complex , a system of strong thunderstorms thought to have been at least four storms deep along 447's flight path. Flight 447 was also flying at a cruise altitude of 35,000 feet, an altitude where the relationship between an aircraft's stall speed and the speed of sound has gained the name "the coffin corner"

Ethonomic Indicator of the Day: 1,000 liters--the equivalent amount of gas you would need to get the nuclear fusion power of one liter of seawater.

Illustrations by Catalogtree One new hub of global air travel is in the Middle East.

Rebecca MacDonald, a Canadian immigrant born in the former Yugoslavia who started with nothing and is now executive chair of Just Energy, a $2.3 billion (market cap) energy firm, delivered such a vivid and passionate speech at the Womens’ Presidents Organization annual conference on Thursday afternoon in Vancouver, that the entire audience of 650 women business owners spontaneously leapt out of their seats to clap, howl and cheer her on. “I laughed, I cried, I almost had to leave the room when she spoke about her relationship with her mother,” said Nancy Lyons, president of Clockwork in Minneapolis, raving about the range of emotions MacDonald inspired just moments after the remarks. So what can you do to make a speech that spurs your audience to similar applause and admiration

Rebecca MacDonald, a Canadian immigrant born in the former Yugoslavia who started with nothing and is now executive chair of Just Energy, a $2.3 billion (market cap) energy firm, delivered such a vivid and passionate speech at the Womens’ Presidents Organization annual conference on Thursday afternoon in Vancouver, that the entire audience of 650 women business owners spontaneously leapt out of their seats to clap, howl and cheer her on. “I laughed, I cried, I almost had to leave the room when she spoke about her relationship with her mother,” said Nancy Lyons, president of Clockwork in Minneapolis, raving about the range of emotions MacDonald inspired just moments after the remarks. So what can you do to make a speech that spurs your audience to similar applause and admiration?

Rebecca MacDonald, a Canadian immigrant born in the former Yugoslavia who started with nothing and is now executive chair of Just Energy, a $2.3 billion (market cap) energy firm, delivered such a vivid and passionate speech at the Womens’ Presidents Organization annual conference on Thursday afternoon in Vancouver, that the entire audience of 650 women business owners spontaneously leapt out of their seats to clap, howl and cheer her on. “I laughed, I cried, I almost had to leave the room when she spoke about her relationship with her mother,” said Nancy Lyons, president of Clockwork in Minneapolis, raving about the range of emotions MacDonald inspired just moments after the remarks