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Friday, July 16
They Just Love What We've Done With The Place There is one thing the sovereign state of Iraq can offer its citizens today, and Iraqis are banging down the doors to get their hands on it: a passport out of the country. On a recent morning in front of the newly reopened passport office, bodies pressed on bodies for a chance to get inside. Pink and yellow files, each containing a precious passport application, waved in the air, as a young man tried to climb onto a rust-orange gate to get the attention of the bureaucrats inside. In the chaos, a sign that hung above the front door toppled to the floor.  Nursing mom asked to leave West Branch, Ia. - A restaurant owner who held a wet T-shirt contest at his business this summer relegates women to the restroom who need to breast-feed their children. "Their idea of what is appropriate is messed up," said Amy Schoon, who earlier this month was asked by a manager of The Hoover House Restaurant in West Branch to nurse her 8-month-old son in the restroom, cover herself more or leave. Schoon, who said she was properly covered, opted to leave the restaurant. "That's a foul thought - that somebody would be ordered to the bathroom to eat." Schoon said she frequently nurses her son in public and has never been asked to leave a public place while she's feeding him. Iowa law permits women to breast-feed in public. Bluetooth display animates clothingFashion victims and cyclists could soon be benefiting from wearable, flexible displays that can talk to mobile phones. The R&D division of France Telecom has developed a Bluetooth compatible LED screen that fits into clothing and displays text, drawings and animations sent by multimedia messaging service (MMS).
The wearable screen is part of the group's forward-looking 'communicating clothes' project. However, the team believes this working device to be much more than a proof-of-concept prototype and are keen to exploit the innovation commercially.
Wednesday, July 7
"ANDREA: Unhappy the land that has no heroes! GALILEO: No, unhappy the land that needs heroes." -Galileo, Berthold Brecht Get Me An Application! An information technology company in Nordjylland, Denmark has introduced a novel program to keep employees satisfied. After examining well-known trends in Internet and business traffic, LL Media decided it would be sensible and appreciated to offer all of its employees free subscriptions to Internet pornography. The company's director, Levi Nielsen, believes that access to porn is a natural fringe benefit, like a free phone or a company car. "We know that 80 percent of all hits on the Internet are on porn sites. And we can see that people also surf porn pages during work," Nielsen told local TV. In return for this service, the company blocks all access to porn pages during office hours. Nielsen hopes that the expense of about $5 per head per week will make his staff more relaxed and more efficient on the job. Shocking! Two designers from India's National Institute of Fashion Technology in Calcutta have begun to offer a cotton jacket for women that contains a mild electrical charge, to help protect them from molesters and muggers. A 9-volt battery in the waistband connects to a switch and wires running through the cloth. The domestic price, according to a May Indo-Asian News Service story, is 855 rupees (about US$20). |
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