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

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.

Last week, astronauts on the International Space Station had an unwelcome visitor.

"The orbiter is a completely different vehicle than anything that has ever flown in space." It was a work platform, a spacewalk platform, a construction site with a robotic arm, a laboratory, a people mover. It was a complex vehicle operating at the edge of its performance, with very little margin for error," John Shannon, program manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston told Air & Space magazine in March.

As Tom Hanks heads to the box office with his latest flick, a rodent-bodied spoof pops up on the streets of NYC--and on popular photo app Instagram. Is this a marketing stunt or just an odd cultural collision

The reviews for HP's TouchPad are in, and we have a consensus: It mimics the iPad well but is not yet a proper replacement; WebOS is sexy but not yet perfect or fully mature; the TouchPad is a solid but late entry to the tablet market; and where are the apps? This last point is most important. Only a day after reviewers skewered HP for offering just 300 TouchPad apps at launch, Apple hit 100,000 apps on the iPad

Google in legal hot water, Big names (Apple! Microsoft! Sony!) buy big Nortel patents, Facebook battles another would-be owner, RIM's highly public executive brawl. This, and other bits of news from your Fast Company editors, with updates all day. Google Broke Wiretap Laws?

The latest travel trend is incorporating tech into offerings at hotels, airports, on airplanes and more. Virgin America and Ace Hotel in NYC have announced partnerships with Google to provide guests with Chromebooks for free on select flights. iPads, however, are already lots of other places

The Fast Company reader's essential rundown of people and companies making moves in your space. Updated all day by FastCompany.com's editors

The Fast Company reader's essential rundown of people and companies making moves in your space.

Today Foursquare announced a nationwide partnership with American Express to offer discounts to cardholders when they check in at select merchants. Now, after linking your AmEx card to your Foursquare account, you'll be able to earn special offers at certain retailers and restaurants: Spend $75 at H&M, for example, and you'll get $10 back on your next statement.

The end of the Space Shuttle era is slightly depressing. NASA won't be flying its own astronauts into space for a while, either, putting a further damper on the good PR that comes from the visually and intellectually stimulating space program, which encourages students of engineering and science.

With the deadline for an important business-related opportunity looming, I began my day today with a sinking sensation in my heart and stomach. I have been tossing ideas around for well over a week now, and none of them stood out.

Cosmic neutrinos could yield key insights, but detection devices would need to be the size of a star or galaxy In "Too Hard for Science?" I interview scientists about ideas they would love to explore that they don't think could be investigated. For instance, they might involve machines beyond the realm of possibility, such as particle accelerators as big as the sun, or they might be completely unethical, such as lethal experiments involving people. This feature aims to look at the impossible dreams, the seemingly intractable problems in science

While the deal makes sense on paper, you know it's never that easy to pull off, which is why you'll need your management team prepped to make it happen as smoothly as possible. Your business , unlike your competition, is doing well and growing. Or, perhaps your growth has reached a lull and you'd like to rectify that

Four years ago, investors gingerly handed over seed money to Lumosity, a startup creating brain games. Today they're happily tossing the same company $32 million