Hasta La Gadget!

Rapper will.i.am is no stranger to musical stunts, but premiering his latest track on Mars courtesy of the Curiosity rover is perhaps the oddest so far. The outlandish artist will reveal his newest record, “Reach for the Stars,” on Tuesday, August 28, NASA has confirmed, as part of an educational event discussing interplanetary transmissions at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

The track, NASA says, describes will.i.am’s “passion for science, technology and space exploration” and is part of the rapper’s i.am.angel Foundation to deliver digital resources to education environments. It’s not clear whether the song is currently being stored in Curiosity’s scant 2GB of internal flash memory, though if that’s the case then we don’t imagine the quality will be all that great.

While the music might not be to everybody’s tastes, the i.am.angel Foundation’s plans to invest in a “science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics initiative” of which Curiosity will be one part can’t be bad news for science education in general. Of course the big question is, since will.i.am has already described ultrabooks as the new ghettoblaster, does that make Curiosity the new iPod?

NASA will livestream the will.i.am and JPL education event from 1pm PDT on Tuesday this week. You’ll be able to tune in at NASA TV.

will.i.am to give Curiosity a Mars premiere of latest track is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Just like a doting parent, the folks over at NASA are fawning over the Curiosity Rover’s every single movement on the Red Planet after landing there earlier this month. Sure, we have seen its first panoramic photo, in addition to a high definition video of its rather pinpoint and accurate landing, so what other “firsts” are there to explore with the Curiosity? Here we are with a 360-degree panorama shot that shows off evidence of a successful first test drive, where Curiosity went forward for approximately 15 feet, rotating 120 degrees followed by reversing for around 8 feet, placing it about 20 feet from its landing site (which has since been named Bradbury Landing). So far, no Decepticons were detected just yet, so Curiosity is free to continue roaming without stumbling into any other intelligent lifeform.

What you see above would include the rover’s first track marks, in addition to a rather tiny 3.5″ rock which could be spotted where the drive began, and engineers claimed it to be partially under one of the rear wheels. The wonders of interstellar travel, and hopefully this space tourist from Earth will be able to capture many more stunning images in the days and months to come.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Curiosity Mars landing captured in HD video, NASA reveals mission to study Mars’ core,

Welcome to Wednesday, folks. This particular hump day saw news that the Department of Justice and the FBI have brought down a trio of websites that dealt in pirated Android apps, while a picture of a mini dock USB cable for the iPhone 5 surfaced as well. Microsoft announced a number of things related to the Xbox 360 today, kicking off a search for people to beta test its new dashboard update, permanently dropping the price of the Kinect by $40, and announcing Xbox 360 Essentials packs, which come packed with accessories to accommodate Xbox 360 owners.

The FTC has ended its investigation of Facebook’s Instagram purchase, though the FTC wrapped things up rather silently. LG has a massive new 4K HDTV available now in South Korea, HP posted less-than-stellar results for quarter 3 of its fiscal year, and today NASA talked about how the Curiosity rover has been getting around on the surface of Mars. Today also brought some new sample shots of the Nikon CoolPix S800c Android camera, along with a new video demo for the device.

We got a closer look at the Archos Gen10 XS tablet line today, and the struggling HTC is planning to cut the price on its One series of phones after the line posted disappointing sales. T-Mobile announced that it will begin offering nationwide unlimited 4G next month, while Rockstar delivered a new round of Grand Theft Auto V screenshots today, and we have a feeling that move screenshots are coming sometime later this week, so keep an eye out for those.

AT&T has reiterated its decision to block FaceTime, and cited an FCC ruling in support of it. Verizon looks be gearing up to offer a Nokia Windows Phone 8 later this year, and sadly, Nintendo confirmed that Nintendo Power magazine will be shutting down in December. NASA has kicked off a simulation meant to test landing on a near-Earth asteroid, and there’s a new iPhone app on the scene that will help you determine which Super PACs are putting out those constant political ads. Black Isle Studios appears to have risen from the dead, but no one seems to know the circumstances surrounding the re-opening.

Finally tonight, we have a review of the new Archos 101 XS tablet by Chris Burns. Enjoy the rest of your evening, everyone!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: August 22, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

You can’t win ’em all. Such is the case with the Curiosity rover, anyway, as diagnostics have revealed that its wind sensors have sustained damage. NASA engineers aren’t fully sure what caused this minor setback to the otherwise successful landing, but hypothesize that stones might’ve been kicked up during the rocket-powered landing, which then struck the sensor’s wiring. Fortunately, there’s already someone on the job, as Javier Gomez-Elvira is investigating the damage with the intent of restoring the lost functionality. Another NASA scientist, Ashwin Vasavada, believes the issue is rather minor: “It degrades our ability to detect wind speed and direction when the wind is blowing from a particular direction, but we think we can work around that.”

The broken instrument was initially discovered as part of NASA’s routine power-cycling of all instrumentation, so as to determine an overall bill of health for the rover. Now that Curiosity has earned its battle scars, it can hold its head high during its journey to Glenelg and Mount Sharp.

Filed under: Science

Curiosity rover flaunts its battle scar, wind sensor is bruised (but not broken) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Aug 2012 19:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This futuristic black and white image was taken today by one of the navigation cameras on NASA’s Curiosity rover. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab are wiggling front left wheel in the Mars gravel as vehicle gets ready to start out on its first drive soon. The dots on the wheel stand for JPL, because NASA won’t let the lab attach its logo. And though the pic is low res, it’s inspiringly beautiful. Who knew Ansel Adams was on board? [NASA via @AlexisMadrigal] More »