| Spirit Mars Rover May Be Dead Too Now Posted: 12 Nov 2008 10:00 AM CST More bad bad news. Just two days ago Phoenix Mars Lander sent his last words, and NASA announced the end of the mission because of a storm that covered its solar panels with Martian dust. Today, we have learnt that the Mars Spirit rover may be dying too because exactly the same problem. In fact, according to Bruce Banerdt—the mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and part-time Hulk impersonator—he may be dead already: This is a very dangerous time. If we don't hear from it on Thursday, we'll be extremely concerned. The culprit, again: A sudden dust storm over the Martian equatorial plains. This storm has covered the solar panels during the last days and, as a result, the Mars Spirit only produced 89 watt-hours last weekend. This is half the amount it needs to keep functioning. Scientists at the JPL have turned off heating for many instruments in the hope that the rover's batteries won't be completely depleted. In this case, however, the Mars Spirit rover is well passed its expiry date. With five years working in the planet, the mission has vastly exceeded even the wildest dreams of NASA's researchers. Also, keep in mind that Spirit's twin brother—Opportunity—is still working at the other side of the planet. But still, seriously NASA, how can you send things that run on solar power to the dustiest planet in the Solar System and forget to include some kind of Windex cleaning device all the gear? Couldn't you guys add some kind of mini-Roomba to crawl the panels of the next one? [NASA and Daily Mail and Posts by Phoenix Mars Lander at Gizmodo] Obligatory dust-related kick-ass song here: [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] |
| New Watchmen Character Posters Give Gadgets Sneak Peek Posted: 12 Nov 2008 07:15 AM CST Behold, the amazing new character banners for Watchmen, a perfect mix of reality and illustration styling. One of the things that I loved about Watchmen back in the 80s—yes, I bought the original when it first came out—was the technology, omnipresent across the whole series. Dave Gibbons made every gadget and architectural structure perfectly futuristic and credible, yet absolutely retro. From Archie—Nite Owl's flamethrowing, screeching, smog-producing, almost invisible and completely submergible ship—to Rorschach's hook launcher, which you can see in these posters alongside the Comedian's flamethrower, a glimpse of Ozymandias' Karnak, and—ahem—the Silk's hot garter belt. galleryPost('watchmencharacters', 6, ''); I've said it before, but I just can't say it enough. I can't wait to see this movie. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] |
| Gmail Now With Voice Chat and Video Posted: 11 Nov 2008 03:19 PM CST Google just added voice and video chat capabilities to Gmail, the perennially in beta web mail program. It uses a special web browser plug-in available for PC and Mac, which requires Firefox, IE, Chrome, and a camera. The plug-in only weights 2MB. For now there's no video support in Google Chat, but you will be able to access this from the web browser, with the capability to tear the video chat into a separate window. According to Google spokesman Jason Freidenfelds, the idea is to make it "quicker and easier to communicate with other people by whatever means is best convenient." Which of course really means "easy to access video sex from any computer". [Reuters and Cnet] [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] |
