Russian Mars Mission Fails in First Day

It doesn't look like the Russians are going to Mars anytime soon now. Immediately upon launch on November 9th, the Shuttle had an engine failure and is stuck in Earth's orbit with no way to leave. Taking off from Earth was successful, but leaving it's orbit was not. I posted earlier about how the Russian Space Agency hasn't been successful with a mission to Mars in 15 years, and that isnt changing anytime soon unless they manage to fix this.

The New Fast-Runner Robo-Ostrich

Recently, researchers at MIT and the Florida Institute of Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC), have created a "FastRunner" robot. It is basically an ostrich, but a robot form. It has been tested and is said to have gone 35-40mph and is estimated to be able to go up to 50mph. Researchers also say that the FastRunner is very changeable and can be modified to meet many different needs.

 

                                         

Apple's New Cloud-Based Music Service Live

Apple has released it's new cloud music service with the new 10.5.1 iTunes update. The new cloud service is the first service from Apple to be cloud based. For $25 a year, iTunes users can now put all of their music from iTunes to a cloud server at Apple, therefore making it so you don't have to download music to your computer.

New Sidewalk Slabs Make Electricity

In London, at the home of the 2012 Summer Olympics, there are sidewalk slabs that have been installed that when stepped on, create electricity. It is estimated that the sidewalk slabs are going be able to power half of the needs of the Olympics. They are currently being tested at the Westfield Stratford City mall to power nearby appliances.

                                                    What do you think of electric slabs?

Adobe Ending Flash on Mobile Devices

Adobe is stopping the upkeep of flash software on mobile devices such as phones and focusing attention on their new product, the HTML5. Many people are looking forward to this change and are excited  that HTML5 will make web standard much easier with embedding content. Adobe has announced that HTML5 will work on mobile devices and will be better than the original flash. 

Apple Fixes iPhone Battery Life

Recently, Apple has released its newest firmware for the iPhone 4. The new software is labeled as iOS 5.0.1 and is made for the poor battery life that the iPhone had before this. There were many complaints from iPhone users about this problem so Apple as usual decided to address the problem directly.

Russia Returning To Mars After 15-Year Break

For the past 15 years, the Russian space agency known as Roscosmos, has been trying to land a probe on Mars. There have been 18 failed attempts so far. Today, it is set to launch at 1:30pm and is set to orbit Mars and land on one of its moons Phobos. Russia has never been known for going to Mars because even in the time of the USSR, they failed 17 times in landing a rover or even getting a satellite there.

                         

The Stop Online Piracy Act

Recently, Congress has been trying to pass a new act to shut down "rogue" websites that offer pirated content such as movies, music, games, etc. Congress has been trying to do this for years now to stop internet piracy, but so far nothing has worked as the website's hosting and DNS servers are completely legal around the world. The content of which is on the websites though is considered illegal. The digital piracy problem is an international problem and will be extremely challenging to fix.

                                   -What do you think about the piracy problems around the world?

Cyber-Attacks Hit World-Wide

Recently, a list of major companies that have been compromised was brought to Congress. Most companies that have been hacked don't actually realize it until years after the actual incident happened due to the lack of seeing any changes. Every major company such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM, Yahoo and more have been hit in the attacks. Most companies are blaming the RSA security company for letting these attacks go unnoticed. This is bringing more people together to try to end hacking for good. It is unknown who is behind the attacks but there is suppose to be further investigation.

                   What do you think the RSA should do about the attacks?

Robo-Nurses?

Toyota, the major Japanese car manufacturer has announced their new plans about release robotic "nurses" to assist people that are in short-term or long-term incapacitation. The new robotic nurses are set to nurse people back to health and are going to be a revolutionary start to health with robotics. There is no set price so far on the nurses but Toyota says that they could be on the market in as little as 2 short years.

 

-Personally I think this is a big step in medical sciences and could be the future of nursing. What do you think?