A short while back NASA released a nice high-resolution image of the Earth as taken from space. That image, which was dubbed as the Blue Marble 2012 was released on Flickr in various resolutions including 640 x 640 and 1024 x 1024 as well as the super large 8000 x 8000. That previous image showed more »

NASA has released a brand new Blue Marble photograph, which is says is the highest resolution photo of Earth ever taken. The image, dubbed Blue Marble 2012, is actually an update of a similar image that was taken in 200s that has been the default background for the iPhone since the first one. The new more »

Maybe one day we’ll be putting on our special mag-lev suits so we can float around and avoid walking all together. Why is that? Mice, which are quite biologically similar to humans, have been floated using magnetism recently. In case you are thinking that scientists have way too much time and money on their hands, more »

Technology makes magical things happen. It can send people to Mars, including you, faithful Gadgetell reader. Technology can be used by jerks to put images that could hurt your future career on Facebook. Technology even has the power to make the rest of the world disappear — you could miss a bank robbery while tweeting. All of this is true and in this week’s Oddball Tech.

Welcome back to the oddball tech stories of the week. We all know that robots are quite good at building cars (well, some cars), vacuuming, and serving tennis balls. Did you know that they could one day help us colonize Mars? Technology is good, however sometimes it makes us do dumb things. How dumb? How about stealing a computer from a jail? It actually gets dumber. Keep reading.

You can’t make this stuff up, people. Well, you could probably make this stuff up if you really tried. Nevermind. Anyway, this week on Oddball Tech, you can have a t-shirt that tells everyone you tweet. Why? Because you can. Motorola picks a side in the upcoming humans vs. robots war. Maybe we should have bought KRZRs, huh? Fresh out of the Google labs is “Google Prophecies.” All this and astronauts, too!

Talk about Twitter’s reach growing. Apparently it is now going into outer space. NASA astronaut Mark Polansky will be commanding the upcoming mission to the International Space Station, and he just posted an invite on YouTube. This invite, which was posted on NASA’s official YouTube channel, invited users, as well as Twitter folks, to be a part of his next mission by submitting questions through YouTube and then following updates via Twitter.

When I’m stressed, I take a minute to step back and breathe. What do bridges do when stressed? In the future, they may change color. While you’re stuck on the future bridge, your car may be using fuel created from New York scum. If you’re really stressed and want to get away from it all, how about going into outer space? Check out this edition of “Oddball Tech.”

Uh oh. Like a teenager forgetting to call his parents to check in, NASA is currently phoning all the friends and hospitals searching for its lost child. Indeed, the Mars Rover Spirit has missed its check in time and now the worst is feared.

Although only expected to last a few months, the Rover is still going six years in. Or was going. Scientists expected dust build up on the solar panels would lead to a steady loss of power but the strong winds have kept the panels charging, at least until recently.

If you didn’t already know, the Mars Phoenix mission came to a close yesterday. You may remember the Mars Phoenix as the robot that found water on Mars over the summer. When the Phoenix outlived the original estimates, those in charge pushed it a little further until it finally stopped communicating with Earth yesterday. Normally this might make an interesting story about the fact that it died, but would really only depress those that were involved.

This time was a bit different, though. The Mars Phoenix was giving updates through its time through Twitter. Through Twitter the Phoenix told us how its mission was going, when he went into safe mode, instances when its solar panels were blocked by a sandstorm, and even answered questions that other users posed. Continued after the break.