Month: December 2011

Six astronauts from around the world taking part in a mock mission to Mars have just emerged from 520 days in isolation. NASA aim to land on the red planet by the 2030’s, so we have already started practising.

The main aim of the Moscow Mars500 experiment was to see if the men could survive the journey to Mars and back, while remaining healthy and sane. After 17 months in their 550-cubic meter windowless mock spaceship, the crew all appear well. According to psychologists, the challenge for them now is dealing with the shock that returning to a busy and active normal life will bring.

The crew lived on rations similar to those available on the International Space Station, while being subjected to daily urine and blood testing. The experiment was designed to imitate a real mission as accurately as possible. Even the communication equipment with which the crew kept in touch with the research unit, located only meters away from them physically, was subjected to disruptions and delays. A mock landing also took place at the mission’s half way point, as crew members put on spacesuits and stomped around in a dark, sand-filled room, designed to replicate the surface of Mars. Throughout the experiment various researchers from different fields studied the crew’s every move by 24 hour surveillance cameras.

The experiment was a much greater success than a similar mock mission in 2000, which did not go so smoothly. It ended in a drunken fistfight and one participant trying to forcibly kiss a female colleague.

Although officials say it will be many decades before we have the technology to survive the cosmic radiation and travel the 35 million miles to our nearest neighbouring planet. We now know our astronauts are mentally and physically capable of making it.

The Apple app store, hailed as one of the safest places to download mobile applications, has become victim to a malicious app designed to prove it isn’t the impenetrable fortress people thought.

The application, designed by hacker Charlie Miller, appeared to track share prices like many other harmless apps in the market. Instead, InstaStock had the ability to download contacts and photos from a user’s iPhone or iPad.

The app was able to do this by exploiting a change in the operating system used by Apple products which meant apps already installed on a device could be updated with unregulated changes.

The app had been on the market for two months before Miller revealed that it could have malicious consequences. This incident wasn’t the first time he showed the Apple operating system contains flaws. Two years ago, he showed that hackers could remotely control devices using the text messaging system. Miller has now been banned from writing software for Apple apps.

Issues with the operating system raised by Miller are far from the only vulnerabilities in what many see as the safe option; bugs in the newest Apple software iOS5 left users with battery lives of only a few hours in their iPhones and iPads.

The iPhone, once a major status symbol, is no longer the most popular phone internationally. Samsung sold 10 million more smartphones in a three month period than Apple. The Mancunion recently pitted the iPhone 4S against the Samsung Galaxy SII. The Samsung smartphone emerged as the clear winner with the iPhone playing catch up.

With no impressive specifications, increasing security issues and the loss of CEO Steve Jobs, Apple are going to need to come up with something revolutionary to stay in this race.