Gadgets Blog

Image: Buzz Aldrin's Speedmaster Larger image

It is one of the defining events in history: on the 21st of July 1969 at 02:56:20 GMT, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon and was joined a few minutes later by Buzz Aldrin. For a brief moment in time, the Apollo 11 mission united people from all over the world in a way that nothing else ever had. Everyone of a certain age remembers exactly where they were when they heard the words, "The Eagle has landed."

Last few days remaining to win a scholarship to attend IAC'09 in Korea through SGAC "Move An Asteroid 2009" Competition! "Move An Asteroid 2009" is an International Student and Young Professional Technical Paper Competition. The competition accepts individuals or team (maximum of 3 individuals) under the age of 33 to submit a 3-10 page technically detailed paper on a unique and innovative concept for deflecting an asteroid/comet with at least 50 metre of diameter. Please visit www.spacegeneration.org/asteroid for more information. The deadline for entries is 26th July 2009. The winner will be sponored to attend IAC and SGC '09 in Daejeon, South Korea. The entries should be send to asteroid@spacegeneration.org

"This video demonstrates the augmented reality camera view of Wikitude AR on a G1 phone from a beautiful viewpoint looking down on Salzburg. Wikitude is a mobile travel guide based on Wikipedia and Panoramio. Search landmarks in your surroundings and view them on a map, list, and on an Augmented Reality (AR) camera view: What you see is an annotated landscape, mountain names, landmark descriptions, and interesting stories. The device displayed is a G1 Google phone, running Android. This video has been produced by Mobilizy.com"

"Pachube is a web service available at http://www.pachube.com that enables people to tag and share real time sensor & environmental data from objects, devices, buildings and spaces around the world. The key aim is to facilitate interaction between remote environments, both physical and virtual. Apart from enabling direct connections between any two responsive environments, it can also be used to facilitate many-to-many connections: just like a physical "patch bay" (or telephone switchboard) Pachube enables any participating project to "plug-in" to any other participating project in real time. Think of it as a generalized real time broker for networked objects and environments that helps you build the Internet of Things."

Ulysses, a joint NASA and European Space Agency mission, officially ceased operations on 30 June 2009, after receiving commands from ground controllers to do so. The spacecraft, which operated for more than 18 years, charted the unexplored regions of space above the poles of the Sun.

NASA today announced that it has signed an agreement with the California Space Authority, Inc., (CSA) to collaborate on participatory science and public outreach using a simulated lunar surface environment.

NASA's Mars rover Spirit, lodged in Martian soil that is causing traction trouble, is taking advantage of the situation by learning more about the Red Planet's environmental history. In April, Spirit entered an area composed of three or more layers of soil with differing pastel hues hiding beneath a darker sand blanket. Scientists dubbed the site "Troy."