MotoRIZR Z8

Motorola has re-entered the Symbian/UIQ arena with the MotoRIZR Z8 launch that runs on UIQ 3. Touted to be the first ever "kick slider" handset from Motorola, the Z8 boasts a graceful mechanism that glides open in a curve which matches the natural contour of your face for a more comfortable conversation. The Motorola Z8 features a 2 megapixel camera, tie-ins with mobile data-based TV, HSDPA connectivity, a superb 16 million color QVGA display, 90MB of internal memory, and a microSD memory card slot. Will cellphones be taking a curved approach from now on, like how Nokia's banana handset made a splash on the global stage when Neo in The Matrix endorsed it?


Watch Video 1


Watch Video 1

Source

Flight of Manta-Rays

According to several researchers, manta rays are often seen jumping out of the water, as high as 2 feet, and then returning to the sea. Scientists are not sure why this jump takes place - it is just one of the many things yet to discover about the manta


They may do it to escape a potential predator, as part of a courtship display, or to rid themselves of skin parasites. Nobody knows. It could even be a kind of play.


A smaller variety, called Mobula, jumps more frequently than any other kind of manta-ray. In the summer of 2005, Paul and Michael Albert documented these fantastic creatures at the sea of Cortez (Baja California), one of the largest concentrations of Manta Rays in the world. “The Flying Mobulas of the Sea of Cortez”, is the amazing article they wrote after their experience with hundreds of jumping rays.


Watch Videos 1


Watch Videos 2


Watch Videos 3

Runaway Alarm Clock

We have seen a Hello Kitty alarm clock, a flying alarm clock and even a sonic boom alarm clock. But Clocky may be one of the most interesting alarm clock concepts.

Not only does this alarm clock wake you up, it BASE jumps off your night stand and runs away to make sure you are really awake. You need to chase it down to turn it off.

Clocky, PopGadget noticed, came out as a concept prototype last year and is finally available at Nanda Home for about $50.

The alarm clock offers one snooze option of up to nine minutes and after that takes off over rug or wood floor..

Chocolate Car

Chocolate car
A Chinese car dealer covered a car in chocolate for Valentine's Day.

About 200kgs of melted chocolate was spread over the VW Beetle after it was first wrapped in cling film.
Seven people worked overnight to make sure the chocolate car was ready to go on display on the morning of Valentine's Day.
According to China News Network, the car attracted many viewers and lovers to the dealer in Qingdao city

Source

Cow: $571. DNA Test: $914. Results: Good

Cow: $571. DNA Test: $914. Results: Good
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - A Malaysian farmer has won custody over a 3-year-old cow after DNA tests ended months of dispute with another farmer over its ownership, a news report said Thursday.
Zulkifli Setapa was deemed the rightful owner after blood samples from the cow matched with those of two other cows that belonged to him, national Bernama news agency said.

Zulkifli and farmer Isa Mohamed, both from northeastern Kelantan state, had filed police reports in November for custody of the animal which is estimated to be worth around 2,000 ringgit ($571).
They jointly paid for DNA tests that cost about 3,200 ringgit ($914) to settle their dispute, in the first such case in Kelantan.
State veterinary official Zaimi Mohamad Daud told farmers to mark their herds to prevent future disputes, Bernama said.
State veterinary officials could not be immediately reached for comments.

Source

Teacher orders other kids to toss a kid out the window

Teacher accused of ordering student thrown from window

COVINGTON, Georgia . (AP) — A teacher at a Newton County school has resigned after officials say she admitted she told two students to throw a 14-year-old girl from a classroom window.
The teacher, a 63-year-old Conyers Ga, resident, was not immediately arrested after the Monday incident, which took place at Sharp Learning Center. But the Newton County Sheriff's Office is investigating.


The student, whose name was not released, was taken to Newton General Hospital on Tuesday night for neck pains and cuts to her body, said Newton County Sheriff's Office investigator Marty Roberts.

According to an incident report by resource officer Brian Chiappetta, the incident took place in the morning during second period. The students were in class when the teacher took a photograph of some of the students, the report said. When the girl asked why the teacher had taken her picture, the teacher allegedly responded with a disparaging remark about the girl's appearance.

The girl became upset and began to use profanity and hit the office assist button on the classroom wall, the incident report said. The teacher then allegedly told two 14-year-old boys to pick up the girl and throw her out the window.

The two boys later told principal Kenneth Daniels that they threw the girl out the window because they did not want to be written up for disobeying a teacher.

The teacher resigned Wednesday, Roberts said.

Roberts said he has been told that the school board will leave it up to the girl's parents to pursue criminal charges against the teacher. But he said his investigation is ongoing.

Batman sighting puts schools on lockdown

Batman sighting puts schools on lockdown
Associated Press
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - To an Arizona middle school, Batman! Three schools in the north Phoenix suburb of Cave Creek were on lockdown for about 45 minutes Wednesday morning after a student at Desert Arroyo Middle School reported seeing a person dressed as Batman run across campus, jump a fence and disappear into the desert, Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said.
The student described the person as 6 feet 3 inches tall and possibly male.


"We're assuming it was male, although they did have a mask on," Clark said.
Officers combed the desert around the middle school. A nearby elementary school and high school also were on lockdown as officers sought the caped crusader.
The result - no Batman.
"It's just one of those interesting little stories that we looked into but we couldn't find anyone," Clark said.
Nedda Shafir, a spokeswoman for the Cave Creek Unified School District, said putting all the schools on lockdown was a precautionary measure.
"We didn't want to take any chances," Shafir said. "We just don't want to put anyone at risk."

Source

Vodka-fueled man catches shark barehanded

Australian catches 4-foot animal by hand, suffers only a tear in his trousers

CANBERRA - A fisherman fueled by vodka caught a 4-foot shark and wrestled it onto a jetty on Australia’s south coast, suffering only small tear marks in his trousers, media reports said on Friday.


Phillip Kerkhof, 41, caught the bronze whaler shark by hand on Monday after he spotted it chasing squid lures near the jetty at the tiny seaside town of Louth Bay in the South Australia state.
“I just snuck up behind him and eventually I went for the big grab and I fluked it and got him,” Kerkhof told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
The area near Louth Bay, around the southern tip of South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, is well known for sharks, and live shark action for the 1975 movie Jaws was filmed nearby.
Kerkhof, who said he had “a fair few vodkas” before he went fishing, said he only realized the danger of his actions the following day.
“It’s not something I’d recommend to do,” he said. “When I sobered up I thought about it and I said, ’I’m a bit of an idiot doing it’.”

Source

Hack lets intruders sneak into home routers

Hack lets intruders sneak into home routers
Ability to change the settings of poorly configured home routers could put home networks at risk of serious attack.
By Joris Evers

If you haven't changed the default password on your home router, let this recent threat serve as a reminder.
Attackers could change the configuration of home routers using JavaScript code, security researchers at Indiana University and Symantec have discovered. The researchers first published their work in December, but Symantec publicized the findings on Thursday.


The researchers found that it is possible to change the DNS, or Domain Name System, settings of a router if the owner uses a connected PC to view a Web page with the JavaScript code. This DNS change lets the attacker divert all the Net traffic going through the router. For example, if the victim types in "www.mybank.com," the request could be sent to a similar-looking fake page created to steal sensitive data.
"I have been able to get this to work on Linksys, D-Link and Netgear routers," Symantec researcher Zulfikar Ramzan said. "You can create one Web site that is able to attack all routers. My feeling is that it is just a matter of time before phishers start using this."
After a router's DNS setting is changed, all computers connected to the device will use the DNS server set up by the attacker to find their way on the Internet. DNS functions like the phonebook of the Internet, mapping text-based addresses such as www.news.com to actual numeric Internet Protocol addresses of a Web site.

The attack works on any type of home router, but only if the default router password hasn't been changed, Ramzan said. The malicious JavaScript code embedded on the attacker's Web page logs into the router using the default credentials--often as simple as "admin" and "password"--and changes the settings.
"One of the issues is that the set-up steps in the router don't prompt you to change the password," Ramzan said. As a result, many people never properly configure their networking gear, he said.
In crafting their proof-of-concept attack code, Ramzan and researchers at Indiana University built upon earlier research that showed how JavaScript could be used for malicious purposes. Jeremiah Grossman, chief technology officer at WhiteHat Security, demonstrated how JavaScript let outside attackers target internal corporate networks.
Grossman is impressed by the Symantec and Indiana University work. "This is very dangerous stuff and could be highly effective if used in the wild," he said.

Router makers already know of the problems with default passwords as well as other security concerns, they said. Linksys, for example, recommends that customers change the default password during the installation procedure, said Karen Sohl, a representative for the company, a division of Cisco Systems. "We are aware of this," she said.
On its Web site, Linksys warns users that miscreants are taking advantage of the default passwords. "Hackers know these defaults and will try them to access your wireless device and change your network settings. To thwart any unauthorized changes, customize the device's password so it will be hard to guess," the company states.
Still, although Linksys' software recommends the password change, consumers can either plug in their router without running the installation disk or bypass the change screen, keeping the defaults. The company offers detailed information on how to change the router password on its Web site. Netgear and D-Link also recommend password changes.

Source

Gadgets caught in daylight-saving switch

Daylight-saving time is arriving three weeks earlier this year, thanks to a new federal law aimed at decreasing energy use. Unfortunately, some of the gadgets consumers depend on will need help catching up to the time change.
Smart phones aren't smart enough on their own to know that DST begins on Sunday, March 11 this year instead of the first Sunday in April as in years past. It also ends a week later than before, so this year, clocks fall back on Sunday, November 4.
The BlackBerry 8800 from Research In Motion, which debuted this week at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, requires owners to download a software update that will tell phone the correct moment to switch into DST mode.
RIM has a special section on the BlackBerry Web site with instructions for how to install the software patch. Get the update here. -http://www.blackberry.com/select/dst2007/
The move could impact time-sensitive applications other than calendaring, such as those that process sales orders or keep track of time cards. Gartner, for example, says the bug could lead to incorrect arrival and departure times in the travel industry and result in errors in bank transactions, causing late payments. In addition, trading applications might execute purchases and sales at the wrong time, and cell phone-billing software could charge peak rates at off-peak hours.
On top of that, the effect is expected to be felt around the world: Canada and Bermuda are conforming to the U.S.-mandated change, and time zone shifts have happened in other locales as well.

Source