VentureBeat

NASA announced today that it has completed its first successful test of a communications network in space that’s modeled on the internet.

The space agency could use the network to improve control over remote spacecraft and communication with manned missions. But the science fiction nerd in me can’t help dreaming about an actual deep space internet, connecting folks on Earth with those in space, on the moon and elsewhere.

The Earth-based and space-based internets also share a common lineage: Google Vice President Vint Cerf, who is known as the father of the internet, worked with NASA to design the deep space internet protocol a decade ago. Unlike the Transmission-Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP, which Cerf co-designed) used today, Disruption-Tolerant Networking (DTN) is designed to withstand the disruptions and delays that can occur when sending information over millions of miles in space.

In the recently completed test, a NASA craft sent images of space back to Earth, 20 million miles away. The next test will involve DTN software loaded on the International Space Station this summer.

By improving space exploration, the deep space internet could be a boon to private enterprises like SpaceX (see VentureBeat’s coverage of how NASA is turning to the private sector). And let’s not forget that Virgin Galactic’s on-Earth counterpart is touting its plans for in-flight Internet access, so it would be pretty cool to eventually see a similar service on space flights. Perhaps in a decade or two, ambitious web startups will look beyond international expansion, to the interplanetary. After all, the internet we use today was also developed by the government before opening to the public. (Of course, as author Vernor Vinge envisioned in his novel A Fire Upon the Deep, the space-based internet would probably be just as full of spam and stupidity.)

As for me, I’m anxiously awaiting the first tweet from space.

Here’s the latest action:

New partnership brings Helio to Virgin Mobile — Virgin Mobile USA will acquire the U.S. arm of South korea-based SK Telecom, namely, a mobile operator called Helio, according to the Financial Times. Both mobile operators have been struggling to make money by piggybacking on the infrastructure of existing carriers. This announcement doesn’t offer any sense of how they might bounce back; it just seems loaded with more bad news, like the estimate that Virgin Mobile USA will lose up to 160,000 users in the second quarter of this year.

Starbucks will stop selling CDs — Starbucks is abandoning its plan to become an entertainment hub where customers can pick up a CD or iTunes gift card along with their lattes, reports Silicon Alley Insider. All in-store music offerings should be gone by September. Starbucks customers may not notice, since they weren’t buying many of those CDs anyway, but this is more bad news for the struggling music industry, which once saw Starbucks as an opportunity for growth.

Digg competitor Mixx adds community-building features – Mixx, another site that allows users to vote on media content, is launching a new feature called Mixx Communities. Users can now set up their own Mixx sites, allowing them to build a Mixx community around specific topics. Another competitor called Reddit already enabled user-created pages, and even went a step further last week by going open source.

Intel doesn’t want Vista either — Intel has decided that it won’t upgrade the computers of its 80,000 employees to the latest and arguably least popular version of the Microsoft operating system, according to The New York Times’ anonymous source. That looks pretty bad for Microsoft, since the software company and chip maker have had a famously close relationship; some observers dubbed the pair “Wintel.” On the other hand, it’s not that surprising, because it’s pretty darn hard to find anyone who wants Vista on their computer. (Aside from VentureBeat writer MG Siegler, that is.)

Social network Multiply lets you backup your videos and photos — With an application built on the Adobe AIR platform, Multiply users can automatically backup all the media in selected folders on their computers. The site charges $20 per year for unlimited storage. In some ways, the move makes sense, since there’s so much media hosted by social networks like Multiply anyway.

Craigslist to overtake eBay in 2009? — The online marketplace market (what a mouthful) is going to have a new leader within a year, predicts entrepreneur and blogger Andrew Chen. Spurred by a comment at the GigaOM’s just-finished Structure conference, he looked at traffic numbers from Compete and Quantcast. As eBay traffic falls and Craigslist traffic rises, the latter will overtake the former in 2009, Chen says.

Vint Cerf: Video downloads will be more popular than streaming — The current model of video sites like YouTube won’t last, says Google’s Vint Cerf, the computer scientist frequently described as “the father of the Internet.” In a (streaming) video at Beet.TV, Cerf argues that as web video’s popularity increases and its technology improves, most users will start downloading videos to their computer, rather than streaming them off a site.

1) Niche job board site conglomerate OnTargetJobs buys niche job board site Jobloft
2) Vint Cerf done at ICANN, staying on at Google, etc.
3) More streaming TV startups get funding
4) Imeem signs third major label

Niche job board site conglomerate OnTargetJobs buys niche job board site Jobloft – Toronto, Canada-based Jobloft is perhaps best known for going on a Canadian game show for entrepreneurs, winning $200,000 in funding then refusing the money. By not giving up 15 percent of the company, its founders apparently kept more of the sell-out for themselves. The company (pictured) has blogged about their saga here.

OnTarget is a sort of holding company for job sites in various industry verticals, such as healthcare, hospitality and others. It works in partnership with Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm.

Vint Cerf done at ICANN, staying on at Google, etc. — Vint Cerf, considered one of the fathers of the internet for inventing the TCP/IP protocol used to handle data transmissions between computers, is stepping down from his long-time position as chairman of the board of directors at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. He will continue on as the Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. He will continue his work at NASA, advising researchers on how to bring the internet to outer space and the world around us. He will continue helping to connect gadgets to the internet, through his work on the IPv6 Forum, a consortium of companies creating a numbering system to organize

Cerf tells the AP he will also go on to complete five books, including a book on poetry he has written.

More streaming TV startups get funding – United Kingdom-based Skinkers has raised $16 million from Acacia Capital Partners as well as existing investor SPARK Ventures and Skinkers’ own management team. Israel-based Imagine Communications has raised $15 million from Court Square Ventures.

Imeem, one of fastest growing Web companies, signs third major label – Imeem, a company that record labels tried to sue earlier this year because it let people share music playlists online, has just cut a deal with EMI. It already has deals with Sony and Warner, as well as a number of independent labels.