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 »

Box has a very tempting promotion for iOS users. Starting on Friday, Box will give users of its iOS app a whopping 50GB of free cloud storage. Once you take advantage of the promotion, your 50GB of space will stick with you no matter what device you’re using Box on. Box is offering this promotion for 50 days, so you have plenty of time to take advantage of this offer.

Now this is cool. Luke Geissbuhler and his kids built more or less a spaceship designed to ride up via weather balloon into space, then fall back to Earth. The expiration included a digital camera to document the whole thing and an iPhone to be used for locate the craft after it returned to Earth. more »

Fancy-man Sir Richard Branson unveiled what his rocketship will look like in the Mojave Dessert yesterday. Branson outlined an aggressive testing and launch plan that sees the rocket prototyped and rigorously tested next year and commercial trips beginning as soon as 2011. Each seat will cost $200,000. Branson says each passenger will get to experience 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!

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.