Mars exploration: Mac or PC?

So what computers do scientists prefer to explore the planet Mars?

When asked by a user the simple question “Mac or PC,” Curiosity’s fault protection engineer Magdy Bareh responded from a joint account: “In this room: 12 Mac, 3 PCs.”

Specifically, the science and engineering team appears to favor Apple Macbook Pro laptops, based on a photo they provided during the Reddit AMA.

Other members of the larger Curiosity team also seem to favor Apple Macbook Pros, according to a screenshot captured by a Reddit user of NASA’s live feed of the entry, descent and landing phase process on Aug. 6.

At the time of this article’s publication, the team had not clarified on Reddit why they preferred Macs to PCs, nor what specific operating system they were using.

(From TPM)

Steve Jobs dies at 56: Changed the world


Image via Wikipedia

Steve Jobs, the chairman of Apple Inc. who resigned as CEO in August because of health problems, died today at 56. This from the Los Angeles Times:



Any one of the above listed products can be considered a great achievement in technological hardware. But combine that with the Apple operating systems, which predated the overused Windows operating system by years, or look at his contribution to the entertainment world with Pixar studios, and you realize you’ve witnessed the passing of a legendary figure.

The New York Times has an interactive graphic of his 317 patents. Spend a few minutes here to see how much of his innovation has become a part of how the world works today.

Steve Jobs: the art of innovation

Years ago, Steve Jobs of Apple appeared on a PBS special on Silicon Valley. The segment began with the announcement of Windows 95, Microsoft’s new user interface that was supposed to revolutionize personal computing.

But Macintosh users knew that the new version of Windows was inferior to the operating system that Mac had four years earlier. Macintosh software was always more user friendly that Microsoft’s. The Macintosh computer was easier to used than anything put out by any other company. Apple put out a far superior product. But the company languished.

In the following two clips, we see the unappreciated dominance of Apple’s products, and, for lack of better words, the contempt Jobs held for his competitors at Microsoft: