MANILA, Philippines -- On a bittersweet note last week, America’s Space Shuttle program came to its final stage — the launch of the last space shuttle to shoot for space (the 135th, actually, in the program’s 30-year history). And when the space shuttle Atlantis finally comes back to Earth, the world’s greatest space-exploring country, its sole superpower, will have something in common with my home country, the Philippines.

Both of them do not have a manned space program.

Of course, the bigger of the two countries will not sit idly by nor will it rest on its space-travel laurels. Already its esteemed think tanks are busy finding ways to bring back their country and their astronauts back in space as early as 2016.

Of course, much of how fast and how extensive will the U.S. revival of its space program be depends on the outcome of their politicians’ budget and deficit negotiations today.

Meanwhile, the smaller nation’s only shot at becoming a space-exploring country would be its “aswang” and “manananggal” citizens enlisting with DOST, and leaving their long-term jobs with the COMELEC.

Apple Loses, Sometimes

Not every day is Christmas day.

Even Apple, the coolest consumer tech company on Earth right now, cannot always have its way in everything.

Last week, for example, a U.S. district court ruled that Steve Jobs and company cannot legally block Amazon.com from calling its online store as “Appstore.” Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled that Apple had failed to prove that Amazon.com’s online store would be confused with that of Apple — App Store.

Nevertheless, the trademark-infringement trial continues in October 2012.

App Store, 15B Times

Its legal frustration, notwithstanding, Apple certainly has lots of reasons to smile — about 15 billion of them, in fact.

Last week, Apple also announced that its online retail outlet App Store has seen more than 15 billion applications for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch downloaded.

This makes the App Store, which currently hosts more than 400,000 applications for the more than 200 million Apple mobile devices worldwide, the world’s most successful software market, ever.

Launched in July 2008, the applications store has paid over $2.5 billion to apps developers as of today.

Hacking the Post

The Washington Post, one of America’s venerable broadsheets, said last week that a hacker was able to break into its network and gained access to about 1.3 million email addresses and usernames on its online jobs section. The Post, however, quickly pointed out that no passwords and other personal data were stolen in the cyber-attack.

The newspaper also said that it promptly informed users of the jobs site about the incident, warning them of possible spamming and phishing attacks.

That’s all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.