..no, not guns that fire mobile phones - although that might be effective, as any Fallout 3 fans would attest - but rather a gun disguised as a moble phone.
Italian police recently raided a safe house used by the Camorra and found this .22 caliber pistol disguised as a (rubbish) mobile phone. The fake antenna served as the barrel, while a trigger was hidden behind one of the keys.
Given that we recently featured a bullet-proof RAZR V3, could this be the start of a fad for weaponized mobile devices?
The Camorra, incidentally, are basically the Mafia - only from Naples. Unless any Camorra members are reading this, of course, in which case you guys are much better and your phone isn’t rubbish. It is great.
Like any busy industrialised society, the people of Japan are prone to what is rather charmingly called ‘the heart flu’ - Depression.
In an attempt to break down mental health taboos and to give people a taste of possible therapies, Keio University professors have launched a psychotherapy service for mobile phones. The service uses question and answer sessions to identify problems and suggest ways of rationalizing them, based on a form of Cognitive Therapy.
Although not intended as a replacement for proper psychological evaluation and care, the designers hope it can encourage users to seek help and provide some short term assistance.
“I think this can be helpful for people in times of need or when they feel a little blue, as a form of daily prevention against depression,” said Professor Yutaka Ohno.
See, now, if the plans to jam mobile phone signals on trains go through people will start trying to get creative and we could end up seeing a lot more of this sort of thing.
A passenger on a French TGV train somehow managed to drop his mobile phone down the toilet. Crouching down to fish it out he - and again it is not entirely clear how this happened - accidentally stuck his hand really far down. It was at this point that the automated suction mechanism kicked in, dragging his hand even further in and trapping him.
The normally high-speed train was delayed for two hours between La Rochelle and Paris while firefighters cut through the pipes. The shame-faced passenger was then carried into a waiting ambulance with the toilet still attached to his arm.
No word on the whereabouts of his phone, although he probably stopped wanting it back after the first hour or so.
However inconvenient you may find not being able to use your mobile when behind the wheel, the figures definitely show that to do so would be a bad idea.
Aegis Mobility has developed a software solution to the problem that it hopes will be licensed by mobile providers keen to give their customers either a) a pocket-sized nanny state and/or b) a safer driving experience.
DriveAssist uses your phone’s GPS to detect when you are moving at ‘driving speeds’ and makes it impossible to make anything other than emergency calls.
Sounds fine, but how does the thing tell if you are actually driving, or just sitting on the bus? Answer: It doesn’t, you just have to override it. WHich you can do if you are driving, we would assume. Hey ho.
I’m thinking of getting a Motorola 4800x mobile. That’s it on the right there - cool, eh? I reckon it’ll make me stand out when using it in public, certainly more so than using a Razr or iPhone would. What’s that? It looks a bit… big? Well, yes. That’s because it was actually sold in the 1970s.How to buy one now? There’s this company called Retrobrick, based here in the UK, selling them. In fact, they’ve got a big stash of vintage handsets, taking in models like the Nokia Cityman 1320, Motorola StarTAC, and the Ericsson T28. Admittedly, the ones that are analogue handsets can’t be used any more - we switched that network off in 2001 - but still, they’ll turn you into a retro fashion icon. Possibly.With the pace at which new handsets emerge quickening all the time, it’s nice that someone’s making a go of flogging the classic models that built this industry. Heaven knows how much that 4800x costs - you have to contact them for the price, which is always a sign it’s probably more than I can afford - but someone’s sure to pick it up.(via Beyond The Beyond)
With the Fins and the Israelis having recently made interesting and contrasting discoveries about the effects of mobile phones on human health, a group of Dutch scientists have now come along to firmly put the cat amongst the pigeons with some findings of their own.
Taking a sample of 300 people, 100 regular mobile users, 100 non mobile users and 100 infrequent mobile users, the team of Dutch scientists discovered that of the 100 regular mobile users there was significant evidence of lowered brain activity. Perhaps worryingly the main researcher, Martijn Ans, remarked that the effects are similar to those observed in the initial onset of Alzheimer’s, though thankfully much less pronounced and still within normal boundaries.
Interestingly it was also discovered that the regular mobile users were able to concentrate for longer on specific tasks. Illuminating stuff and no mistake; check back next week for news about what (insert nationality here) scientists have found.
(Via Engadget)
