Infozone Breaking World News

A Canadian man called Martin Reisch has told the press that he managed to cross the Canada/US border after he forgot his passport by showing the officials a scanned version on his iPad.

Mr Reisch, who was travelling to Vermont from Montreal noticed he had left his passport at home just before the border crossing. He told the official that he was travelling to Vermont to deliver some Christmas presents and showed the digital copy of his passport.

Mr Reisch told the Associated Press, “I thought I’d at least give it a try,” adding; “He took the iPad into the little border hut. He was in there a good five, six minutes. It seemed like an eternity. When he came back, he took a good long pause before wishing me a Merry Christmas”.

The 33 year old Canadian managed to re-enter Canada later in the day and has vowed not to forget his passport in the future.

In the latest mobile phone news to come from Apple, it has been reported that Sharp is to supply the touchscreen LCD’s for the next generation of iPads and iPhones. Sharp already supplies Apple with screens for the iPhone 4S and the new deal means that Sharp’s LCD’s will feature in the company’s future releases.

Sharp’s displays are already used in other tablets, phones and televisions including its own Aquos range of TV’s and smartphones. Sharp plans to increase its production of smaller LCD’s because of the huge demand for tablets and smartphones worldwide.

Apple’s next generation of iPad is expected to launch in the first half of next year.

A Dutch woman could be charged with stalking after it was revealed that she called a man 65,000 times in a year. Police were told that the man had been bombarded with calls and texts from the woman averaging over 178 times a day.

Lawyers for the 42 year old defendant said that the woman was in a relationship with the man and argued that her actions were not excessive; the man denies that they were in a relationship.

Police raided the woman’s home in Rotterdam, Holland and found a number of laptops and mobile phones.
The woman was bailed at the preliminary hearing, but within hours had contacted the man again so was remanded in custody. A new hearing date has not yet been set.

Nike has finally released the famous Nike Mag boots featured in the 80’s classic movie Back to the Future Part II. The limited edition sneakers are based on the movie props from the film that stared Michael J. Fox and only 1500 will be made.

The boots feature an electroluminescent sole and light up Nike badge on the tongue. Nike will be auctioning 150 pairs of boots a day on eBay for 10 days, with the proceeds going to the Michael J. Fox Foundation which is researching for a cure for Parkinson’s Disease.

Check out eBay now to see how much these beauties are going for.

Online dating site BeautifulPeople.com admitted that it had been hit by a Shrek virus that allowed ‘ugly’ people to join without being rated first. Traditionally members to the site have to go through a screening process where existing users rate them and if they are deemed attractive enough they are accepted. But last month the rating process was hit by a virus allowing anyone to join.

The website owners had to apologise to 30,000 people who were wrongly admitted to the popular dating site, they have since been removed from the site. Managing director Greg Hodge said, ”We got suspicious when tens of thousands of new members were accepted over a six-week period, many of whom were no oil painting,”

He went on to say, ”We responded immediately, repairing the damage from the Shrek virus and putting every new member back into the rating module for a legitimate and democratic vote. The result is that we have lost over 30,000 recent members.

”We have sincere regret for the unfortunate people who were wrongly admitted to the site and who believed, albeit for a short while, that they were beautiful”.

The origin of the virus is still being investigated by BeautifulPeople.com and safeguards have been put in place to stop any future attacks.

Toyota has unveiled a new in-car social networking service for its motorists called Toyota Friend. In collaboration with Salesforce.com, the software allows owners to receive Twitter-styled messages from their car about maintenance issues and low batteries in their electric and hybrid vehicles.

Motorists can also communicate with Toyota dealerships and customer services through cloud-computing software and keep in touch with friends and family through Facebook and Twitter.

The software will be released with all new electric and hybrid cars next year in Japan, but the service is expected to be available to other markets such as the UK shortly after if it proves successful.

President of the Toyota Motor Corporation Akio Toyoda said, “Social networking services are transforming human interaction and modes of communication. The automobile needs to evolve in step with that transformation. I am always calling for Toyota to make ever-better cars. The alliance that we announce today is an important step forward in achieving that goal.”

This news comes just over a week since Toyota announced that it was partnering with Microsoft to install internet connectivity to its vehicles.

Angry Birds, Amazon and Spotify were amongst the winners at the Appy Awards on Monday night in London. 50 favourite apps were nominated across 10 categories, but it was Angry Birds that came out on top winning app of the year and best game app. Other winners included Spotify which won best music app and Amazon which won best lifestyle app.

Mobile phone applications are now big business since the introduction of the iPhone and the Google Android OS, with more than 10 billion apps being downloaded from the Apple App Store in the last year and a half.

Organisers of the Appy Awards, Carphone Warehouse said that it planned to makes the ceremony an annual event.

A pensioner in Georgia is facing up to three years in prison after causing a disruption to internet services in Armenia. The 75 year old woman has admitted damaging fibre-optic cables that link Georgia to Armenia while she was scavenging for copper.

A spokesman told the AFP news agency, “Taking into account her advancing years, she has been released pending the end of the investigation and subsequent trial.”

The internet was down for several hours on the 28th March and was eventually restored in the early hours of the 29th.

Amazon has revealed its new online music streaming service called cloud player, which users can upload their songs and play them from a range of different devices. Cloud Player has already been released in the States and gives Amazon account holders 5GB of storage space for free, although more storage can be purchased for just over $1 per GB.

Songs uploaded onto the cloud player can be accessed through Palm, Blackberry and Android devices, but there is no support for Apple devices.

Bill Car, Amazon’s vice president for music and movies said, “Our customers have told us they don’t want to download music to their work computers or phones because they find it hard to move music around to different devices.”

Apple and Google are expected to release their own cloud music services over the coming months, so time will tell on how popular Amazon’s cloud player will become.

We have all heard of conditions like tennis elbow and athletes foot that can cause a lot of discomfort to sufferers, but there is a new condition that can affect people who use mobile devices for work called ‘Blackberry Thumb’.

Blackberry Thumb is a type of repetitive strain injury caused by the overuse of mobile phones to send emails and other messages and is becoming so common that one law firms expect an increase of compensation claims from employees who suffer from the condition.

Karen Jackson from Roberts Jackson solicitors said, “If no one knows about the risks involved, they won’t sue, but more and more people are becoming aware of health hazards in the workplace.” Adding that, “A lot of people displaying symptoms associated with repetitive strain injury do not realise they are work-related, but the number with symptoms is increasing.”

Roberts Jackson solicitors is now hiring new staff in anticipation of the rise in ‘Blackberry Thumb’ claims.