Gizmodo: Spirit

Zvue Spirit MP3 Player Brings New Meaning To Patriotism

Mark Wilson — Sat, 17 May 2008 19:15:00 EDT

Sure, the iPod has marketshare...and what may prove to be a timeless style. But you know what kicks the crap out of that stuff? Patriotism. And nothing says "America" like red, white and blue along with a star-shaped control panel—exactly what the Zvue Spirit is ready to offer.

The Spirit stores 1GB of tunes, including 15 preloaded patriotic tracks like Lee Greenwood's God Bless The USA. At just 2"x 1 3/8, it seems a little small for American Hummer-driving, Big-Gulp-drinking tastes. But who are we to ever question something that in some way almost resembles the American flag? Pre-order your Zvue Spirit today for $35.99. [Zvue via anythingbutipod]

NASA Leaving Spirit Mars Rover to Die Due to Budget Cuts

Adam Frucci — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Sad news today from NASA: Spirit, the Mars rover, is perfectly functional and waiting for instructions that it'll never receive on a sunny hillside on the red planet. It's being left to die due to budget cuts. UPDATE: Looks like NASA has changed their mind. Physorg reports that "it has rescinded a letter that recommended budget cuts in the Mars Rover program to cover the cost of a next-generation rover on the Red Planet." Yee haw!

Yes, due to a budget cut of $4 million, only one of the Mars rovers will survive, and that one is Opportunity. Spirit, which has been chugging along handily for four years on Mars, will just be left where it is despite being fully able to continue doing research.

And while yes, there are plenty of important things that we should be doing with our tax dollars, we're spending well over that $4 million that NASA needed every day on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so its sad to see such a promising robot with so much potential left to rot. RIP, Spirit. [Physorg via io9]

Mars Rovers: Three Years Running and Smarter, Too

Charlie White — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 14:41:08 EST

Those two Mars rovers, named Spirit and Opportunity, landed on the red planet in January 2004 and are still going strong, twelve times longer than their originally-planned mission of 90 Martian days. Together they've sent more than 160,000 images back to Earth and have driven a combined 10.4 miles.

The two rovers were pretty much chowderheads when they first landed, but now they're quite a bit smarter because of their newly-uploaded software. Now they can be more picky about their choice of snapshots, recognizing that, for example, a rock they're looking at is the same one they saw earlier, but just from a different angle. This keeps the little robots from taking multiple pictures of the same thing.

Perhaps scientists will teach them how to reproduce, and then an entire population of the little droids will be there to meet their earthling overlords if we ever arrive. – Charlie White

Old Rovers Learn New Tricks to Kick Off Year Four [Red Orbit]