Paid content takes hit as News Corp drops $32m Project Alesia 'digital newsstand'

NEWS Corp has dropped a digital newsstand project that was part of an ambitious plan by the Rupert Murdoch-owned company to help publishers charge for content online.

The Wall Street Journal reported "Project Alesia" was intended to create a single online destination for a variety of publishers to sell news to users of Apple's iPad and other tablet computers.

Citing a "person familiar with the matter," the News Corp-owned Journal said the initiative had failed to attract a "critical mass" of publishers willing to participate.

The decision to abandon "Project Alesia" was first reported by British publication Brand Republic, which said it was dropped "just weeks away from launch".

According to Brand Republic, Alesia was intended to unite content from News Corp's stable of newspapers with those of other publishers.
The Journal said more than 100 people had been working on the project in Britain and News Corp had invested around $US31.5 million ($32.3 million) in the venture.

It said a number of News Corp executives working on the project in New York would be reassigned.

Mr Murdoch is a leading advocate of charging readers for online access to news.

The Wall Street Journal currently charges for full online access and The Times and Sunday Times, other News Corp titles, recently became the first newspapers in Britain to begin charging readers on the web.

Mr Murdoch has also been a big booster of the iPad, saying recently that it could be a "game-changer" for newspapers suffering from a fall in print advertising revnue, declining circulation and free news on the internet.

In June, News Corp bought Skiff, an electronic reading platform developed by US publisher Hearst Corp.

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Skylon

THE UK's new space agency is aiming high in its first year, calling for interest in partners to develop a plane that can launch into space from a runway.

The UKSA was formed on April 1 this year at a cost of £40 million ($66 million) and drawing in some £230 million ($380 million) in funds from the several existing UK space organisations it replaces.

According to the UKSA website, it plans to grow the UK's current space program into a "£40 billion a year" enterprise, increasing jobs in the sector from 68,000 to 100,000 within 20 years.

It's had no problems getting press publicity for its first big project.
Named "Skylon", the revolutionary spaceplane looks like it should be driven by a Bond nemesis and promises to "slash the cost of space travel", according to The Sun.

The Skylon - a 90m craft with no external tanks or rockets - will be able to take off and land on a runway.

The engine is developed by Oxfordshire-based workshop Reaction Engines, which claims there will be global demand for up to 90 of the Skylons at around £700 million each.

"No other technology we know of is nearly as good," creator Alan Bond told The Sun.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Skylon - apart from the British optimism that it will be successful - is the fact that it will be pilotless.

Each flight will cost around £6.3 million and carry up to 24 passengers - just a touch over £260,000 per passenger.

Currently, it costs well into the millions to book a flight on a space craft, although Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic hopes to bring the costs down to around £125,000 by the time it launches.

THE UKSA is this week hosting a workshop aimed at attracting help to develop the Skylon commercially.

It says the Skylon could also be used for missions to the International Space Station and Mars.

Doctors use lasers to blast worm living behind man's eye for nine months

A MAN from the USA state of Iowa lived with a worm behind his eyeball for nine months.

John Matthews from Bellevue, discovered his uninvited guest after becoming concerned when he noticed two spots obscuring vision in his left eye.

After tests at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, doctors discovered the invasive creature and rushed Matthews into a treatment room where they shot a laser into his eyeball to kill the worm.

"I could see it from behind, moving, trying to dodge the laser," he told the Telegraph Herald.

The Telegraph Herald reported that it took a second round of laser treatment before the worm was killed.

The worm's remains will be absorbed into Matthews' body, but he will suffer permanent damage to his retina.
Matthews said he either picked up the parasite on vacation in Mexico or it could have been a raccoon roundworm he caught while turkey hunting.

A film crew from Animal Planet came to Iowa to film a story about Matthews for the show Shape Shifters.