Last night I got the chance to witness history in the making:  I was fortunate enough to get the chance to watch NASA's Curiosity rover land on the surface of Mars.  Well, in actuality I watched a feed of the control room filled with dozens of blue-shirted scientists, but you get the picture.  After the spectacular success of the landing last night, everyone is abuzz about this scientific innovation.  Over at Gizmodo, they got the chance to talk with Brian Cooper, the man who drives Curiosity, and he told them that essentially the programming running the rover is a big ol' video game.  

Behind this latest rover is a series of innovations that we might think of as AI.  It can scan the horizon, find hazards and report back to the driver about what it sees.  It also has enough brains to know when it's in trouble -- something my gaming characters never exactly figure out.  The older versions of the NASA rovers weren't able to make these sorts of judgments, and so would just continue on doing their thing, even if that thing landed them in a pit.

If you're at all interested in science I suggest you head on over to Gizmodo and watch the interview for yourself.  Knowing that gaming is helping to solve real world problems (real space problems?) sort of makes my head tingle.  It's almost as if being a gamer can help further mankind.  Who knew that gaming would have such a positive influence on mankind's endeavors?  Well, I guess Brian Cooper did.