Jan 17, 2010

WLS Presents at University of Tokyo

Yesterday, in the team's first major event in Japan, two of the technical leaders in the White Label Space team presented their latest plans for the Google Lunar X PRIZE.


Professor Kazuya Yoshida, the lead engineer of the Rover and Dr Andrew Barton, lead engineer for the Lander, presented to a crowd of over 50 including many prominent members of Japan's space industry. Also sharing the podium was Misuzu Onuki, CEO of NewSpace Consultants and prolific space 2.0 author explained the benefits and challenges of private space exploration with a particular emphasis on increasing Japan's involvement in this exciting field.

Dr Peter Diamandis from the X PRIZE Foundation also joined the proceedings remotely by sending a video email welcoming Japanese involvement in the Google Lunar X PRIZE.

The event also served as a kick-off meeting for the Japanese branch of White Label Space with enthusiastic brainstorming continuing until the early hours of the morning.

White Label Space aims to harness the advertising budgets of some of the world's biggest brands to achieve its Google Lunar X PRIZE mission and the connection with Japan is very important since that country has many of the world's top technology firms and biggest advertisers. The team is planning to develop a "made in Japan" rover that will provide sponsors with a strong platform to reach out to the general public, sending a message of technological advancement and commercial leadership.

Jan 11, 2010

Jon Oxer to Present at linux.conf.au

Jon Oxer, member of our open source partner Lunar Numbat, will present at linux.conf.au, (the Linux Conference of Australasia) on Thursday the 21st of January in Wellington, New Zealand.

In his talk Jon will discuss Lunar Numbat's progress and also some of the technical challenges they are facing in their support of the White Label Space GLXP mission.

Jon Oxer is a member of the Lunar Numbat build team and is currently working on the throttle control system for the White Label Space lunar lander. He has written four books, and along with Hugh Blemings, and the latest called Practical Arduino was just publised. By day Jon works as Technical Director of a web application development company, and by night he's working to connect every part of his house, car, and garden to the Internet using a combination of Arduino and gaffer tape.