Digital Journal — Check out news, gadgets and technology from around the world. Pick up some new jokes, hear some shocking revelations and read a whole bunch of useless facts to impress your friends at dinner parties. This is Bits & Bytes.
Smoking Out Crime
Security alarms are so ’90s. Straight out of Home Alone’s cutting-room floor comes the Danish-made Protect Smoke Cannon, which fills an area with smoke in seconds after being triggered. Intruders get disoriented and flee the site of their proposed robbery, perhaps frightened of inhaling icky second-hand smoke.
BBC’s Biggest Gaffe Yet
The venerable 24/7 British news channel is not without its flaws, most notably the “Wrong Guy” gaffe. BBC News 24 mistakenly did a live TV interview with a job applicant instead of an IT expert for a story about an Apple court case. Guy Goma, looking like someone was tugging on his testicles, stammered his responses but otherwise did a serviceable job as an interviewee. He said of the subsequent media frenzy: “I never wanted to be famous. I just want to be an accountant. I hope I get the job at the BBC.”
Lego Block Party
It’s cute enough for a kid, but powerful enough for a CEO. A Lego Media Center PC called Big Blue, created by Toronto resident Sebastian, is made of 10,000 Lego pieces fresh from the toy box. The pieces encase a dual-core CPU, complete with two gigs of RAM, DVD playback and a touch-screen LCD. And you thought your Play-Doh PSP was cool.
The Love Child of a Frog, a Dog and a Hummingbird
Sometimes, pro Photoshoppers just see things we normals don’t. So from the imaginative mind of Chris Murphy comes the “Hovdrog,” an animal blend of a tree frog, hummingbird and his sister’s pet dog. His creation was one of the winners in Advanced Photoshop Magazine‘s Design-a-Hybrid competition. Well-deserved honour, we say, since gene-splicing takes serious skills for the average digital artist. Offer Chris your kudos at subscribe to Digital Journal now, and receive 8 issues for $29.95 GST ($48.95 USD)!
