NASA animation depicts Curiosity's soft landing on Mars, courtesy of a 'sky crane' (video)

Sending a rover to a distant planet is no small feat, so we might as well make the landing even more spectacular, right? That's exactly what NASA has in mind for its Curiosity Mars rover, albeit for more practical reasons. Launching in late 2011 and expected to land on Mars in August 2012, this mobile laboratory will see a unique descent after entering the Martian atmosphere: there'll be the usual separation from the heatshield and backshell, but at about 380 seconds into the entry, the rover will be gently lowered down by wire from a "sky crane," as opposed to taking a leap of faith. Once the landing is complete, the hovering sky crane will then detach from the rover and fly off for a dramatic disposal -- let's just hope it won't hit the now-dormant Spirit. See for yourself in the video above.


VIA  Space, Engadget
SOURCE  NASA

Conceptual 'Fujitsu Lifebook X2' folds into quarters, makes regular notebooks look lame

Being that doomsday and the robot apocalypse are nearing quickly, now seems an appropriate time to gaze into the future of laptop design, right? Well, maybe those anomalies aren't actually around the corner, but you know us -- we always fancy a warm cup of concept tea. Designer Park Hyun Jin over at Yanko recently posted some renders of the Fujitsu Lifebook X2, a laptop-like invention of his fervent imagination that allows for two orientations thanks to its four folds. The design features a full QWERTY keyboard that can be used when the notebook is folded out in full, as well as a half-folded option with an onscreen keyboard, pictured above. Naturally, we'd love for this concept design to become a reality, but we can't wrap our brains around the seam between the two screens. Well actually, we could probably get used to it.

VIA  Engadget
SOURCE  Yanko Design

Crysis 2 Review

One of the most awaited games of 2011, Crysis 2 pits the player against aliens (Cephs) and human soldiers (CELL). Players will play as a one man army with a super suit named Nanosuit 2 in a devastated New York. I have personally played the game and it really looks nice! However many complained of the "watered down graphics" and the lack of DX11 support out from the box. Personally, it is one of the prettiest games I have seen. I can't alt+tab out of the game so I am sorry for the lack of screenshots proving the prettiness of this game. It might be one of the prettiest FPS you can play out there. Even my GTX460 1GB is stressed out even though it supports only DX9. I will take screenshots tomorrow when I play it again.