Hasta La Gadget!

Before we send any planet-trotting robot to explore the landscape of Mars or Venus, we need to test it here on Earth. Two such robotic platforms being developed for future missions are undergoing testing at European Space Agency facilities: one that rolls, and one that hops.

The rolling one is actually on the books to head to the Red Planet as part of the ESA’s Mars 2020 program. It’s just wrapped a week of testing in the Spanish desert, just one of many Mars analogs the space program uses. It looks nice. The gravity’s a little different, of course, and there’s a bit more atmosphere, but it’s close enough to test a few things.

The team controlling Charlie, which is what they named the prototype, was doing so from hundreds of miles away, in the U.K. — not quite an interplanetary distance, but they did of course think to simulate the delay operators would encounter if the rover were actually on Mars. It would also have a ton more instruments on board.

Exploration and navigation was still done entirely using information collected by the rover via radar and cameras, and the rover’s drill was also put to work. It rained one day, which is extraordinarily unlikely to happen on Mars, but the operators presumably pretended it was a dust storm and rolled with it.

Another Earth-analog test is scheduled for February in Chile’s Atacama desert. You can learn more about the ExoMars rover and the Mars 2020 mission here.

The other robot that the ESA publicized this week isn’t theirs but was developed by ETH Zurich: the SpaceBok —  you know, like springbok. The researchers there think that hopping around like that well-known ungulate could be a good way to get around on other planets.

It’s nice to roll around on stable wheels, sure, but it’s no use when you want to get to the far side of some boulder or descend into a ravine to check out an interesting mineral deposit. SpaceBok is meant to be a highly stable jumping machine that can traverse rough terrain or walk with a normal quadrupedal gait as needed (well, normal for robots).

“This is not particularly useful on Earth,” admits SpaceBok team member Elias Hampp, but “it could reach a height of four meters on the Moon. This would allow for a fast and efficient way of moving forward.”

It was doing some testing at the ESA’s “Mars Yard sandbox,” a little pen filled with Mars-like soil and rocks. The team is looking into improving autonomy with better vision — the better it can see where it lands, the better SpaceBok can stick that landing.

Interplanetary missions are very much in vogue now, and we may soon even see some private trips to the Moon and Mars. So even if NASA or the ESA doesn’t decide to take SpaceBok (or some similarly creative robot) out into the solar system, perhaps a generous sponsor will.

Console Wars, the non-fiction novel by Blake J. Harris on Nintendo and Sega’s rivalry throughout the 1990s, is in development as a limited TV series, Deadline reports. It will be produced by Legendary Television, behind the upcoming Netflix series Lo…

If you’re in the market for a new TV and a new phone, then you might be very interested in T-Mobile’s latest offer. The carrier has recently launched a new promotion in which for customers who buy a Samsung Galaxy smartphone, they will be eligible to get themselves a free 50-inch Samsung 4K TV.

Of course not all Samsung phones are eligible and from what we can tell, you will need to get one of their flagships, although the good news is that this seems to cover 2017’s flagships so you can save some money on that front. Eligible devices include the Samsung  Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+, Galaxy Note 9, Galaxy S8, and the Galaxy S8 Active.

Once you get the phone from T-Mobile via their Equipment Installment Plan and activate a new line of service, you should then receive a code that you can use to redeem the free TV. This promotion will be kicking off on the 30th of November, although it is unclear as to how long this promotion is expected to last for, but you will have until the 31st of December to redeem the TV.

However this will be a limited promotion as T-Mobile notes that it is pretty much valid until the TVs run out of stock, so if you move too slowly, then you might miss out on this offer.

T-Mobile Offering Free Samsung TVs With Galaxy Smartphone Purchases , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Back in the day, all the game consoles used cartridges. We had to blow on those things regularly, or dust got in the connectors and things didn’t work correctly. Dutch tech site Techtastic is reporting on a supposed Sony patent application that hints the next console could ditch the discs used for games today and return to the cartridge format.

Filed in late 2017, the patent application’s illustrations appear to show a cartridge that combines elements of flash drives with old-school cartridges. A Sony exec previously stated that the company needed a link between a console for home and a handheld, and this format looks like it might do that job. Keep in mind that in our searches of the USPTO database, we can’t locate this listing, so it’s also quite possible that it’s a hoax.

Assuming this is real, it could mean that the PS5 has a portable gaming component like the Switch, or perhaps Sony is cooking up a refreshed PS Vita that will play the same games as your PS5 at home using the same media. Perhaps each of these cartridges will have all the storage needed to run the game you are buying without filling up your internal drive. This also fits in with rumors of a disc-less console future that we had assumed to mean downloads or streaming games only – but not everyone has the bandwidth or patience to download 10 GB of game data before they can play a game.

[via TechTastic via ComicBook]

If you’re looking to keep certain content from ever appearing on your Facebook wall, there might be a feature in the pipeline for you. Computer science student Jane Manchun Wong discovered code on Facebook that appears to show the company is testing…