• Will Wright, the creator of SimCity, has imagined what the first Mars settlement might look like in 2047. A Martian town with a population of 8,000 inhabitants sounds somewhat unlikely in less than 50 years, but it might happen someday. [url]
• An open source Mars Simulator built in Java has been around since 1998. SimMars was never commercially released, so this open source project was the only game in town -- until the mod for SimCity 4. [url]
• FMARS is a simulated Mars habitat project, located near an impact crater on Devon Island. The Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station was created by the non-profit Mars Society in 2000 -- and it would be cool if they rented it out on AirBnB... [url]

Zenph Studio's approach is to work out how the musician and the instrument acts and responds, then get a computer to play that track again as a real-time, real-life performance, which in turn can be recorded using modern techniques. The new track isn't a re-mastering, but a re-performance, as if the musician was actually playing it even though the artist may or may not be dead.

The technology works by ascertaining how an artist strikes a note and then recreating that note again. For the piano, the company takes into account everything from how an artist strikes a note to their hand movement, how they play when tired (yes, it can recreate fatigue) and even, as for the case of Jerry Lee Lewis, how they play with their feet. For the guitar there is even more to take into account, like pad placement, fingernails, and bending of the strings, the list goes on.

The result is that songs recorded 100 years ago can and will be able to be re-recorded with modern recording equipment, allowing old songs to be revitalised and enjoyed once more "in surround sound or headphone listening".