They are actual photos from mars' polar region. Haven't seen you for a while btw ;).

EDIT:
Here's a detailed photo:
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/images...9_2785_cut.jpg

Basalt means volcanoes, right?

P.S. Omg it's Kiddo!

This is neat;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXJtkJOHpkk

Its a iPhone app that use's the camera to solve rubix cubes for you :P

You see? Augmented Reality has already fixed the hard problem of solving rubix cubes.
Fixing everything else in the world is easy by comparison :D

In what sense is that AR?

I think it's rather image processing ...

Pff, I can solve a rubik cube with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back while playing Beethoven's ninth symphony with my toes, all that while falling hanging to a bungee rope with my teeth.

I don't believe you Chaos.
I mean... Beethoven?! Yeah right.

No, its not true AR, but tis very strongly linked.
Its taking an image from reality, processing it, and showing you the solution virtualy.
This sort of application is really the whole point of AR in many ways. Giving computer assistance to real-world tasks in a real world context.

Seen it before, but still an excelent image.

Ha, don't tell any of the boarders at my school (who almost all appear to have iPhones and who are all being swept up in a bizarre rubik's cube craze), or they will never learn how to figure one out for themselves!

Yeah, well, very few people do learn how to do a rubik cube.

Most people try to jump right in and solve it, rather then trying to work out how to solve it first.
An important life-lesson I think. (not that its impossible to solve ver just educated guesswork, but if you sit down and first work out how to swap faces about without disturbing other faces its much easier. Theres only 8 or so types of moves you need if I remember correctly)

It appears, that there are algorhitms for solving the cube. I never knew that it`s so simple :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsQIoPyfQzM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf5szwz6Qzc

Damn! Robot movement is getting so smooth and fluent...

Wow...those arms look like a guy in a suit

Nasa alert as Russian and US satellites crash in space at 25,000mph
 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...llites-collide

Nasa alert as Russian and US satellites crash in space at 25,000mph

Better hope there won't be some kinda domino effect huh?:-/

Yeah, particularly dangerous for things in lower orbit. With higher or equal orbits you can at least garenty the potential domino effect will always decrease in intensity.
(that is because Satalite/Satellite collusions will produce more debree then debree/Satellite collisions).

Lot orbits however, both the intensity of collisions and the number could increase :-/

Makes me immediately think of the brilliant anime Planetes, about space debris collectors. Anyway, how anyone could've let that happen? How can the russians leave a non functioning satellite like that floating about and not tell anyone about it?

Theres shitloads of nonfunctional satelites up there.
If it wasnt for the fact space is insanely big, this would be happening daily :P

The problem is we only really started tracking this stuff recently, and even then just a fraction.

Actually, broken stuff is usually "parked" on a safe orbit, or shot down or pushed into the atmosphere. Seeing that that russian one was launched in 93 I reckon they didn't have the money to handle the mission control, and just forgot about it.

Wouldn't it be cooler to push it out of the atmosphere? Increase chance for alien contact :p

Things are only parked if they are able to be parked, a lot dosnt have the fuel, and most stuff isn't even tracked.

The only time they would shot stuff is if its danger of hitting stuff on earth.....shotting stuff almost certainly increase's space junk. (as you really cant shot down if your aiming up...all the kinetic energy would be going up)

Not worth it, unless there happens to be a wormhole enterance near earth (like Farscape), it would take billions of years to reach anywhere, and then its more likely Jupiter would sweep it up.

Nah, the Klingons taking pot-shots at our deep space probes or V''ger coming back to kill us all is more likely.

Which supports my point... ? Every satellite has some maneuvering capability to correct it's orbit, especially one that weighs almost a ton! And if some malfunction happens that makes it unable to fire them, you tell everyone so that they can track it, and avoid it.

Sorry but there are no excuses, Russians are to blame for making our orbit a junkyard, as I said, it was launched in 93, their space program was on it's knees in 93 after 89. The mess was huge in those days (and it probably still is huge, just not as huge). Probably some sort of a stupid "government secret" no one gives a rats ass about.

There are no excuse's, but its equaly not all the Russians fault.
The US, and plenty of European company's have just as much junk up there.
China too.

Remember also that "maneuvering capability" isnt same thing as being able to maneuver enough to bring them into a decaying orbit within a reasonable time-scale.
Depending on height, some stuff could require quite a big of spare thrust to bring its speed down enough for the orbit to decay.
This stuff wasnt planned very well. Space developments rarely have any alllocated budget to clean up after themselfs. Normaly its a question "well, we could leave enough fuel for it...or we could fit this extra equipment on board instead"

It all needs special regulation, frankly.

I should've said "making our orbit a BIGGER mess then it already is" :P.

What I am particularly pissed about is you can see their way of "doing things". Remember the Kursk? It's putting "state secret" before the people, and they are not even anything really important, or something that can be understood, no. The russian bureaucracy works so that it will remind about itself every step of the way. Making stuff hard on purpose, so that the citizen does not forget that they're holding power. Same goes here.

Sure the satellite is dead in the water, but we'll not tell anyone about it cause it's a "government secret".

While we're at regulating space flight there should be laws abolishing flying weapons of any kind in there too...

Well, absolutely there x2
I think there is some regulations against space weapons already. But I think it was signed back in the day when it seemed quite unlikely, so I'm not sure how regid it is when govements start actualy wanting to do stuff. (especialy last year with China destroying a satalite with debree planeted in its path).
----
Whats better then AR? AR with Zombies- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0drf5mHIH0 :P
(quite old, but some might not have seen it yet).


More seriously, looks like microsoft is seriously getting into AR now;
http://gamesalfresco.com/2009/02/24/...fest/#comments
(plenty of concept videos from them, and they have tech demos of various related technologys, like writting in midair, or new advances in photosythn).