mars

There's no escaping the mobile-ad attack

Thursday's tech news roundup is feeling square:

In the search for more money, YouTube is adding video commercials to play before videos on smartphones and tablets. These ads will play for five seconds before users can skip right to the video. As we spend more time on mobile devices, it's only natural for advertising to migrate. Android users will be the first to see pre-roll ads, since the YouTube iPhone app cannot show ads. But that will change in the next YouTube app version for iOS 6.

The Google+ network has updated its sliders. The feature, found in … Read more

Curiosity lands on Mars again, this time in HD

You thought you knew all about the Curiosity rover's Mars landing. You looked at the photos. You watched the NASA folks explode with delight on video. You proposed to Mohawk Guy on Twitter.

Then along comes a new look at the landing. The Curiosity Rover Twitter feed just unleashed an HD video mashup of the landing with play-by-play audio from our favorite space nerds at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory mission control.… Read more

Curiosity flight director's family lives on 'Mars time'

If you happen to see a family in Southern California with kids ages 8, 10, and 13 at the beach just before midnight or perhaps bowling at 4 a.m., they're not related to Edward Cullen or any other vampires. They're just living on Martian time.

It's all part of NASA engineer David Oh's grand experiment to allow his family to share in an adventure of planetary proportions he's been involved in at work lately. Oh is the flight director for the Curiosity rover, currently wheeling its way along the surface of the Red Planet and occasionally blasting a Martian rock with a laser every now and then.… Read more

Curiosity takes a spin on Mars, completes short test drive

In a major milestone, the six-wheel Curiosity Mars rover took its first baby steps today, rolling about 15 feet forward, performing a slow 120-degree pirouette, and then backing up 8 feet to prove the $2.5 billion science lab is, in fact, mobile -- and ready to rove.

The short test drive began at 7:17 a.m. PT and took about 16 minutes to complete. The actual drive time was about a third of that, but the rover was programmed to stop and take multiple pictures of its tracks in the dusty, pebble-strewn soil of Gale Crater.

The move … Read more

Curiosity fires ChemCam laser for first time on Mars

On August 19, 2012, NASA's Curiosity rover used the ChemCam, its laser-camera combo unit, for the first time on Mars, firing an energy beam at a small rock called "Coronation."

Having excited the atoms in a target rock into an ionized, glowing plasma with its million watt laser, ChemCam can then use its telescopic camera to watch the light emitted and analyze it with three spectrometers for information about elemental composition.

This first firing of the laser was primarily for target practice and calibration, but the ChemCam team expects to eventually take about a dozen compositional measurements … Read more

Curiosity's view of Mars so far

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, better known as the Curiosity rover, landed on the surface of the fourth planet from the sun on August 5, and it brought more cameras than even the most fanatic visitors to the Grand Canyon.

The space agency has been sharing many of the best from the thousands of pictures being sent back by Curiosity, and I went through NASA's public collections to compile the most incredible and insightful views of the Martian surface, and of the rover itself. … Read more

Do AT&T's FaceTime limits break FCC rules?

Tuesday's tech news roundup honors our future robot overlords:

AT&T is being accused of data-plan discrimination and breaking FCC rules regarding new iPhone FaceTime options. AT&T recently announced that iPhone customers could use FaceTime video chat service over a cellular network if they have the new shared data plan. (Previously, FaceTime was limited to Wi-Fi.) But several groups have spoken out about the limit and questioned if it follows FCC guidelines. AT&T responded saying it does not believe this breaks any FCC rules, since FaceTime was offered to all customers over Wi-Fi and … Read more

Curiosity does the Martian wiggle! (picture)

In preparation for driving the Curiosity rover around the Martian surface, NASA engineers today wiggled the wheels from mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a test of the rover's steering systems. This animated series of four images shows the movement of Curiosity's rear right wheel as rover drivers on Earth turned the vehicle's four corner wheels in place in the gravel at the landing site on Mars.

After steering check, Mars rover set for initial test drive

With a broken wind sensor the only problem of any note aboard the Curiosity Mars rover, engineers plan to uplink commands overnight for an initial test drive, a short 10-foot move and a turning reverse maneuver to check out the robotic science lab's ability to roam its Gale Crater landing site, project managers said today.

In two major milestones, engineers successfully tested the six-wheeled rover's steering system, commanding the four corner wheels to turn in place, and erected the lab's complex 7-foot-long robot arm and tool turret to test the appendage's drive motors and joints.

"… Read more