Friday the 13th for Doom 3?

Activision`s Doom 3 first-person shooter survival-horror title is expected to be available to local gamers on 13 August. The game took four years to develop and was prone to numerous delays.

Todd Hollenshead, chief executive of Doom 3 development company id Software, has disclosed the minimum system requirements:

* 1.5GHz Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 1500 processor
* 384MB RAM
* 2GB free hard drive space
* An nVidia GeForce 3 or ATI Technologies 8500 graphics card or better

Duke University in the US is providing its freshmen with their own Apple iPod digital music players as part of an experiment to see if the device can double as a learning tool.

AP reports that the university will distribute 1 650 devices for the pilot programme. The university will also create a Web site modelled on the Apple iTunes online music site from which students can download songs and course content, including language lessons, lectures and audio books.

The university will spend $500 000 on the project, which includes hiring an extra technology specialist, giving grants to faculty and studying the outcome. The programme is a one-year experiment, but could be renewed.

A British man has put his Star Trek-themed apartment up for sale on online auction site eBay for $1 million.

Located in Leicestershire, the 500-square-foot one-bedroom apartment has a number of futuristic features, reports SACM. These include voice-activated lighting, a replica of the transporter console from the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series and a Library Computer Access and Retrieval System.