I have a fond appreciate for the Mars Rover program.  Way back in 2001 I was afforded the opportunity to work with JPL and IBM to test the first Mars Rover before it lifted off for Mars.  A group of my former students at Carroll High School in Southlake, Texas worked with several other schools from around the world to test a Rover which was situated in the Arizona desert.  We issued commands to the Rover using a control panel we accessed via the internet and were then able to watch the Rover move based on our commands.  It was amazing as we were using a very early video streaming technology.

Software Allows Rover to Think

This article sheds light on how far the technology running on the Rover has come.  Our tech was not able to think back in 2001 and barely did what we asked after waiting for what seemed like a couple days.  Playing Quake over the web was pretty slow back then as well, but we made do.