It's been a long time since I last posted, it's time to update on what all is going on.

Here's where things stand with our games:

• Pretty Good Solitaire (Windows) - We released a new version 12.1 on February 24th.  Version 12.1 added 10 games, bringing the total number of games to 710.  Version 12.2 is in development, it will add 15 games for a total of 725.  Version 12.2 will be released this summer.

• Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition - We released the long awaited version 2.0 of the Mac Edition on March 24th. Version 2.0 added 71 new games, bringing the total number of games for the Mac version to 101.  It also added a whole bunch of new features, such as Climb Mode.  Version 2.0 had a couple of crashing bugs, so we updated it to version 2.01 on May 5.  Version 2.01 seems to be very stable and is becoming quite successful.  Version 2.1 is currently in development, it will add 99 new games bringing the total to 200.  Version 2.1 should be released in a few months.

• Pretty Good MahJongg - We released a bug fix version 2.33 yesterday (May 26th).  We are planning a major new version that will add some games and features, plus we expect to have this new release for Mac OS X as well as Windows.

• Action Solitaire - we haven't released a new version of this game for some time.  We will have a bug fix update available quite soon.

• Goodsol Solitaire 101 - we released a bug fix version 1.01 in April.

• Most Popular Solitaire - we released a new version 2.0 on May 19th.  This version fixed some bugs and added Climb Mode, but the major thing about this release was that this new version is for both Windows and Mac OS X.  Most Popular Solitaire becomes our second product that runs on Mac OS X.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

The largest commercial communications satellite ever has been launched. The Terrestar-1 from Terrestar Networks lifted off from the ESA (Europe's equivalent of NASA) aerospace center in French Guiana on the northern coast of South America.

The satellite's network will operate in two 10 MHz blocks of contiguous MSS spectrum in the 2 GHz band throughout the United States and Canada with a footprint that covers a population of nearly 330 million. The company will offer both wireless broadband and voice services which will improve inconsistent rural coverage and dead zones throughout North America. Connection to the satellite, however, requires a clear line of sight with the southern sky.

At CTIA Wireless in April, Terrestar showed off a prototype device which would switch back and forth between AT&T's terrestrial network and the Terrestar satellite network as coverage changed. Unlike most consumer SatPhones, this prototype lacked a large external antenna, and was fully enclosed in a candy-bar phone similar to early Sony Ericsson K-series phones.

Two more satellites, even larger than Terrestar's, are expected to launch next year from SkyTerra Communications. That company already has two MSAT satellites in geostationary orbit which cover North, Central, and parts of South America, as well as Hawaii and the Caribbean, up to 250 miles offshore.

Like Terrestar, SkyTerra will upgrade to a hybrid MSS/Cellular architecture when its two next-generation satellites launch in the first half of 2010. Earlier this month, the company outlined plans to transition its subscribers over to the new network.

"SkyTerra's two next-generation satellites are phenomenal communications assets that will enable government and enterprise customers as well as consumers to take advantage of new capabilities and applications using conventional handsets and mobile devices," SkyTerra's Executive Vice President of Strategy, Development and Distribution Marc Montagner said.

Neither company has yet divulged subscription prices for these hybrid networks, nor have they discussed how much the dual mode satellite phones will cost. Typically satellite-only handsets are unwieldy and expensive, costing more than $1,000 for the hardware alone.

The timing of Terrestar's launch is important, as it coincides with the Notice of Funds Availability (NOFA) for the American Recovery and Reinvestment act, with $2.5 billion going to the Rural Utilities Service -- a.k.a., the rural broadband stimulus money, which Vice President Joe Biden announced yesterday. Various groups have been testing their own solutions for rural broadband improvement, such as Airspan Networks which thinks WiMAX is the solution, and Skycasters, which supports satellite broadband.

Clear just closed down.

Here’s how it worked while it was in business. You paid $200 for a one-year membership. You underwent a big, complicated background check to prove that you were extra-super-trustworthy.

In exchange, in a few big airports, you got to skip to the front of the TSA line for screening.

Now, you didn’t skip the screening itself. You still went through the X-ray machine and had to remove your shoes, belt, pocket contents, laptops, and plastic quart ziplock bag of toiletries.

You just got to cut to the front of the line.

A few people signed up. In certain airports, it was, indeed, worth actual money to cut to the front of the line.

This wasn’t Clear’s actual business plan. The actual business plan was that Clear would do detailed background checks on travellers, who would then be trusted to bypass security completely because they were extra-super-trustworthy.

Now, the TSA doesn’t even trust pilots, who go through the same screening as the rest of us to make sure they’re not bringing something extraordinarily dangerous onto a plane like a 3.5 oz bottle of shampoo. Because, of course, with a little bottle of shampoo, they could make a bomb, which they could use to fly the plane they are piloting into a building, something that is impossible for mere pilots sitting at the controls of the jet.

So as it turns out, the TSA never actually agreed to go along with this skipping-the-screening thing, and ultimately, all Clear was allowed to do was get you to the front of the line.

At this point, and here’s the interesting part, at this point, a rational businessperson would say, “Well, does the Clear idea still make sense if we can’t actually let you skip the screening?”

OK, maybe it still makes sense to charge to skip to the front of the line. Maybe there’s a business model in that.

In that case, though, why did they still do background checks? It doesn’t make any sense.

The environment changed. It turns out that Clear’s business model of prescreening wasn’t going to be possible. But they kept doing it anyway. What kind of organizational dysfunction does it take to completely ignore the changed circumstances and keep at a money-losing business?

What’s even funnier is that Clear could probably have been profitable if they had just skipped the one unnecessarily stupid part of their business model: the detailed background checks on all their customers.

Nobody at Clear did any thinking. They had a business model, the business model wasn’t actually possible, everybody knew it, and they still plugged away at it. Thoughtless optimism. I don’t know whether to salute ‘em or laugh.

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