With the online search industry firmly in its grip on Earth, Google is looking towards the stars in its hunt for new business opportunities. Next up appears to be Mars. At mars.google.com , Web surfers can explore the Red Planet from the comfort of their own desk. The site offers photographs of Mars as well as relief maps and infrared images of the Martian surface. There's probably no better way to trace the voyages of Mars Pathfinder, Europe's ill-fated Beagle 2 or NASA's Viking 2, which made the first ever trip to Mars in 1975. And who knows -- with all of its detailed photos and maps, could a Google surfer become the first to discover signs of life on the planet?

Thought-Controlled Computers

No keyboard, no mouse and no joystick, and they are still playing pong on a computer screen . Admittedly you do need an awful lot of cables and a headset that looks like a 1970s shower cap, but being able to operate a computer by thought process alone is still pretty impressive. Another video shows how the technology can also be  used for typing .

The technology, which is called a Brain Computer Interface  or BCI, is the result of a state-funded cooperation between the US and Europe. And snce both the well-respected Fraunhofer Institute and Berlin's Technical University are involved, it must be for real. After cerebral electric activity is picked up by electrodes attached to the scalp, signals are then transformed into computer commands. The long-term aim is to allow a mouse pointer to be controlled by brain waves, or tools which can be used for patients suffering from quadriplegia.