Hi Alan, there isn't currently any tool for directly bending an object.

To get text on a sphere, the way I would do it now would be to create the text and then from the top view, rotate each character individually in the Top view so that each one intersects the sphere at a different angle, like this:



Then select all those pieces and use Boolean union to fuse them into one single solid.

After that, you can draw another sphere slightly larger than the first, and use boolean Intersection between that larger sphere and the text, to trim off the outside straight part and leave a curved outside like this:




Also this recent thread covers some other techniques for making raised text off of a surface:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1303.1

Hope this helps,

- Michael