After George Bush announced to the world back in 2004 that the US would aim to send a manned mission to Mars, the underfunded yet persistant Russian space agency (the Lavochkin Association) began dusting off old plans of their own, with a view to reclaiming the crown of remote robotic planetary exploration. Despite the fact that many of the Association’s staff are paid little more than retail cashiers, they are confident that their unfortunately-named probe ‘Phobos-Grunt’ will fulfil its mission to land on one of the moons of Mars and bring soil samples back to Earth.

Evidently wishing not to be outdone by their southerly neighbours, the Canucks are climbing aboard the new space tourism bandwagon. A US/Canadian outfit called PlanetSpace is planning a spaceport, which is provisionally located in Nova Scotia and set cost an estimated $200million. PlanetSpace plan to do service and supply runs to the ISS, as well as suborbital tourist launches, all to be powered by ethyl alcohol rockets in light of environmental concerns.

The fact that technology and the ‘always-on, always-connected’ world we live in can be somewhat addictive will be no news to many readers here, I’d imagine. What might be, though, is that in the near future your employers may be legally liable for the effects of work-related technoaddiction. A new report suggests that the high paced nature of modern business leaves employees wide open to having their drive and ambition exploited by companies desparate to get an edge on the competition. So, if your boss offers you a Blackberry, you know what to do – just say no, people.

In the never-ending quest for instant reportage, the business information group Thompson Financial is using computer programs to automatically compile and publish simple articles on the reported earnings of companies. Early results have been error free, if a little wooden when it comes to the language used. The programs are short on adjectives and human feeling, but then that’s not really a requirement for the sort of story being made here. Could this spell an end for financial and business blogging, at least blogging done by people? If machines can produce accurate factual pieces more quickly than a real person, a margin-sensitive media outlet will be keen to cash in.