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.

SellABand (unfortunate name, that) is a potentially interesting new music publishing model. If you’re a band, you publish your demo music on SellABand’s site. Listeners who like your music can plunk down $10 for a “part”. When 5,000 parts have been sold, SellABand spends the money to hire you a studio and a producer and publish your music in a special edition CD (for the listeners who bought parts) and on their site for free. SellABand’s advertising revenue is split, based on a band’s share of download activity on the site, between SellABand, the listeners who bought parts in your band, and you. You also sell CD’s through the site and split the proceeds with the listeners who sponsored you. Perhaps overly complex, but could do a good job of enabling fans and bands to make it happen.

David Dean has posted a list of free sources for science fiction online.

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.