Software simulates lunar surface

Los Angeles-based gaming company Virtue Arts has developed software which simulates a lunar ride, according to a report this morning in News.Com.

"It renders the exact physics and topology of the moon in a 3D game, letting players drive the lunar surface, gaze at the galaxy or study objects that were left by NASA astronauts on real missions," explains the article.

The NASA Ames Research Centre is reportedly planning to use the software to train astronauts for future missions, and Virtue will soon sell lunar exploration software to schools and consumers.

Google is working on a system that listens to what is on a TV playing in the background, and then serves the user relevant adverts, writes The Register.

Director of research at Google, Peter Norvig, has said these ideas will show up eventually in real Google products - sooner rather than later.

"The idea is to use the existing PC microphone to listen to whatever is heard in the background, be it music, your phone going off or the TV turned down. The PC then identifies it, using fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that`s adverts or search results, or a chatroom on the subject," explains the article.

MySpace.com will soon allow members of the popular online social networking hub to sell downloads of their original music directly through MySpace Web pages, according to Wired.Com.

Chris DeWolfe, MySpace`s chief executive, says the online music venture is a logical progression for the Internet portal, given changing trends in the music industry that have made it more affordable for bands to make quality recordings and make them available online.

MySpace says it hosts Web pages for more than three million recording artists, from groups as big as U2 to newly minted garage bands. It often posts up to four songs at a time on its MySpace sites that visitors can listen to, but not download or buy without leaving the site.