A new boost for the Mars rovers

As the new year starts, Mars will still be pretty much the same, but the two four-year-old rovers currently exploring the red-faced planet, are getting a software update.

This software update will increase the rovers' artificial intelligence such that the rovers will be able to "recognize dust devils or clouds and select only the relevant parts of those images to send back to Earth", as RedOrbit explains.

The main new features could be summarized as:
- dust devil recognition
- visual target tracking
- go and touch

All these new elements are designed to help the rovers to gain autonomy. You have to remember that when you tell a rover to move forward, the call takes ~eight minutes to reach the robot, and a picture of it's new position takes another eight minutes to come back to the NASA center... Can't really do things very hastily in such conditions.

Curious about all these features? Check out the official press release of NASA.

Protecting the iconic polar bear

I found this good news entry: it seems that finally the Bush government has moved to protect the polar bear. Conditions for them have been drastically changing through global warming, and an ever increasing number of tourists visiting northern countries in search of these bears.

Beyond that, and as clorenz1's story highlights, it is an indirect acceptance of Global Warming by the United States government. Will things finally start moving on other aspects of this phenomena?

If you want to find out more on the topic of global warming, I suggest you start reading here.

Apple iPhone: why not?

I've read many posts recently on Apple eventually forthcoming iPhone (or whatever they'll call it). What seems striking to me is first of all, the number of people who feel the need to trash this (not yet even announced) device by Apple. They all give numerous reasons, most of them summing up to "all the other manufacturers already do it better and cheaper". By better they often mean "with more functionalities" and by cheaper ... (you get the point). Personally, I don't agree with such an analysis, at least not in the details. My current phone (a perfectly fine Sony Ericsson K750i) gives me the possibility to do loads of things ... but I only use 10% of them. The main reason is that the integration is so poor that I can't be asked to play around with it (and I'm a computer s guy, so what about the "normal" people?). It sure plays music ... but I need 5 minutes to transfer one song from my laptop, if everything goes well !
Just for this, I would be curious to see what Apple has got to propose. Remember, Apple has always first thought about what the user really needed/wanted, and then sought to build a system to provide such functionalities, whereas the rest of the world does it the other way round. So let's wait and see... (we won't have too long to wait, Macworld is coming ).
Want more? watch the already "famous" vid from Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht, at Digg.

A small step for ships?

I initially heard about this story in a local Swiss newspaper, and now it's starting to get some coverage: Skysails. The idea is that boats (cargo boats) could use wind power to reduce their fuel cunsumption trough long cruises accross oceans. The idea is actually excellent and the company is starting to be at an interesting point in their life: the first real "big" cargo will start using this system at the beginning of 2007.

Chek it out for yourself: skysails.com.

About this blog

Hi there,

This is just a short message to explain that this blog is above all a test and that it's aim will be to collect some nice information, which is not yet found on other blogs. Don't know if I will succeed, in being regular or finding enough content, but as I said: it's a test. I guess the main topics will be focused on technology and computers ...

Hope you enjoy.

Svenjick

PS
I'll be expressing my opinion and it's your choice to adhere or not. I do by no means want to hurt anybody with my opinion.