NASA GIVES UP ON MARS ROVER SPIRIT

Back in March NASA raised concerns over the health of Spirit, one of the Mars rovers that landed on the red planet back in 2004. Spirit‘s problems began back in January of last year when NASA reported that the rover’s mission was concluded as a result of it getting stuck in the Martian sand. At that point, Spirit began operations as a stationary research platform until it went into hibernation in March 2010.

Since then Spirit has been silent. NASA had originally hoped that Spirit might finally wake up when the rover reached its peak solar energy production on March 10th of this year, but alas there was no response. It is believed that a “stressful” Martian winter without much sunlight may have contributed to Spirit’s demise since it likely experienced colder internal temperatures than its previous six years on the planet. Some of the rover’s components are believed to have been damaged by the cold since there was inadequate solar energy to power Spirit’s survival heaters.

As a result, NASA has ceased all attempts to contact the rover using its Deep Space Network of antennas on Earth in addition to its two Mars orbiters. Due to the low probability that Spirit will once again establish communications these communication assets are now being transitioned to NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). The MSL is NASA’s next generation Mars rover that is expected to launch on November 25th of this year. NASA did state that its Deep Space Network may listen for signals from Spirit when “the schedule permits.”

Opportunity, an identical rover that landed on Mars three weeks after Spirit, is in much better shape and continues to explore the planet’s surface. Opportunity’s current odometry as of May 18, 2011 is over 18 miles.

ANGRY BIRDS COMING TO FACEBOOK

Rovio is making sure that Angry Birds is available wherever you want to play it. They have previously announced plans for version on the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and PC. They have now announced Angry Birds will be coming to Facebook.

Mikael Hed, boss of Rovio, has stated that Angry Birds on Facebook will bring new elements to the game due to its social nature. For example, we can expect the pigs to feature more prominently in this version.

There is no release date for the Facebook launch at this time.

RIM LOOKING AT COMPETITORS PLATFORMS TO INCREASE REVENUE

At an event last week in Boston, RIM VP Pete Devenyi said the company is exploring the possibility of introducing cross-platform solutions that would allow IT professionals to manage smartphones made by companies other than RIM. “BlackBerry is and will continue to be dominant in most corporations,” Devenyi said in an interview. “It’s not going to be the only device, given the fact that consumers have the choice to bring in their own devices, and IT departments are often letting them in. So there’s a question there: do those corporations have to manage those devices differently or is there the possibility that RIM might extend capabilities to make it easier for those corporations to manage those devices as well?” This is hardly the first time RIM has explored its competitors’ platforms as a possible way to widen its net. For years, RIM has been experimenting with a variety of cross-platform tools that might help the company develop new revenue channels. The most well-known example is likely RIM’s BlackBerry Application Suite, which we showed off exclusively two years ago. BAS would have allowed BlackBerry software to be installed on platforms like Windows Mobile and Symbian so that companies could deploy BlackBerry services on a variety of popular smartphone operating systems. The current state of RIM’s BAS software solution is unknown. [BGR]