A helmet that sends SOS on accident!

The brainchild of an India-born chef for top cyclists, a new 'life saver' bike helmet that connects with your phone and alerts emergency services in case of an accident is set to hit the markets soon.

The potentially life saving smartphone app, which can detect a crash and then alert the emergency services, has been designed for bike riders.

The clever application pairs through Bluetooth with a motion detector which is attached to the rider's helmet and senses the crash.

The invention has been created by Oklahoma-based software company ICEdot in the US.

The detector, named the ICEdot Crash Sensor, can even evaluate the severity of the crash depending on the force of the rider's fall, the Daily Mail reported.

Chris Zenthoefer, ICEdot's CEO, said: "The idea came from Biju Thomas, a prominent chef for a lot of top cyclists. He was on a solo ride and crashed and thought if the crash had been any worse, nobody would have know where he was located."

"We were then introduced and it became clear that the pairing of his idea with ICEdot existing technology were a perfect match," Zenthoefer said.

Following an accident the app will prompt the phone to sound an alarm and a countdown, which can be set to between 15 and 60 seconds, is initiated.

If the alarm is not deactivated the app will contact an SOS service and relay vital information.

Using GPS coordinates the device can reveal the user's location and the severity of their condition.

What's more, it can even pass on crucial medical details, for example if the user has diabetes or any allergies.

If the fall is not critical, the crash victim can simply cease the countdown on their phone and cancel the process.

The cost of the motion sensor device, the smartphone app and a one year membership to the ICEdot service is estimated to be about 120 pounds.

The device should be on the market in April next year, the daily said.

Twin prostitutes retire after having sex with 355,000 men

Two Dutch sisters are celebrating their retirement from prostitution with a tell-all book about their lives and the industry, revealing that they have entertained 355,000 men between them.

70-year-old identical twins Louise and Martine Fokkens shot to fame earlier this year as stars of a documentary charting their 50 year careers as prostitutes in Amsterdam.

Louise revealed that her bad arthritis meant that she had retired from prostitution two years ago.

Louise, who became a prostitute aged twenty after a brief spell making lampshades explained how she got in to the business.

"We didn't have enough money," the Daily Mail quoted her as saying on 'This Morning.'

"My husband's friends said it was the best way to make money so we decided to find out. I was 20/21 the first time.

"At first it was a problem for our mother and father but later we all lived normally with it," she said.

Mother-of-three, Martine still works as a prostitute two to three times a week.

"My family told me about my sister while I was in the hospital having my first baby.

"I didn't believe it but we talked about it and I loved her, that's life," Martine added.

Martine then started working at the brothel as a cleaner but two years later decided to join her sister as a prostitute after so many clients mistook her for her identical twin.

100 million'll die by 2030 if world fails to act on climate

More than 100 million people will die and global economic growth will be cut by 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030 if the world fails to tackle climate change, a report commissioned by 20 governments said on Wednesday.

As global average temperatures rise due to greenhouse gas emissions, the effects on the planet, such as melting ice caps, extreme weather, drought and rising sea levels, will threaten populations and livelihoods, said the report conducted by humanitarian organisation DARA.

It calculated that five million deaths occur each year from air pollution, hunger and disease as a result of climate change and carbon-intensive economies, and that toll would likely rise to six million a year by 2030 if current patterns of fossil fuel use continue.

More than 90 percent of those deaths will occur in developing countries, said the report that calculated the human and economic impact of climate change on 184 countries in 2010 and 2030. It was commissioned by the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a partnership of 20 developing countries threatened by climate change.

"A combined climate-carbon crisis is estimated to claim 100 million lives between now and the end of the next decade," the report said.

It said the effects of climate change had lowered global output by 1.6 percent of world GDP, or by about $1.2 trillion a year, and losses could double to 3.2 percent of global GDP by 2030 if global temperatures are allowed to rise, surpassing 10 percent before 2100.

It estimated the cost of moving the world to a low-carbon economy at about 0.5 percent of GDP this decade.

COUNTING THE COST
British economist Nicholas Stern told Reuters earlier this year investment equivalent to 2 percent of global GDP was needed to limit, prevent and adapt to climate change. His report on the economics of climate change in 2006 said an average global temperature rise of 2-3 degrees Celsius in the next 50 years could reduce global consumption per head by up to 20 percent.

Temperatures have already risen by about 0.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. Almost 200 nations agreed in 2010 to limit the global average temperature rise to below 2C (3.6 Fahrenheit) to avoid dangerous impacts from climate change.

But climate scientists have warned that the chance of limiting the rise to below 2C is getting smaller as global greenhouse gas emissions rise due to burning fossil fuels.

The world's poorest nations are the most vulnerable as they face increased risk of drought, water shortages, crop failure, poverty and disease. On average, they could see an 11 percent loss in GDP by 2030 due to climate change, DARA said.

"One degree Celsius rise in temperature is associated with 10 percent productivity loss in farming. For us, it means losing about 4 million metric tonnes of food grain, amounting to about $2.5 billion. That is about 2 percent of our GDP," Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said in response to the report.

"Adding up the damages to property and other losses, we are faced with a total loss of about 3-4 percent of GDP."

Even the biggest and most rapidly developing economies will not escape unscathed. The United States and China could see a 2.1 percent reduction in their respective GDPs by 2030, while India could experience a more than 5 percent loss.

Soon, your walk can be your new password

Scientists are advancing biometrics security systems a step further by developing 'biosoles' that can recognise you based upon your unique walk. 

Researchers from the Carnegie Mellon University's Biometrics Research and Identity Automation Lab are developing new ways to enable security based on body's movements, which, unlike retinal scans and fingerprints, can't be taken from an individual, the New York Daily News reported. 

The new discipline called "pedo-biometrics" uses a "BioSole" inserted into shoes to assess a wearer's gait, matching that distinctive pattern against an existing record to verify the person's identity. 

Biometrics have a decided advantage over passwords because they don't rely on users' ability to remember them, the system identifies users based on something they are, for example with a retina or fingerprint scan. 

Most authentication systems need "things you know", but more advanced systems need "things you are", explained NBC News. 

Fingerprints and retina scans fall into the latter category but can still be penetrated - by amputating the corresponding body part. 

The university is teaming up with Autonomous ID, a company based in Ottawa, Canada, to create passwords based on behavioural validation. 

Scientists are advancing biometrics security systems a step further by developing 'biosoles' that can recognise you based upon your unique walk. 

Researchers from the Carnegie Mellon University's Biometrics Research and Identity Automation Lab are developing new ways to enable security based on body's movements, which, unlike retinal scans and fingerprints, can't be taken from an individual, the New York Daily News reported. 

The new discipline called "pedo-biometrics" uses a "BioSole" inserted into shoes to assess a wearer's gait, matching that distinctive pattern against an existing record to verify the person's identity. 

Biometrics have a decided advantage over passwords because they don't rely on users' ability to remember them, the system identifies users based on something they are, for example with a retina or fingerprint scan. 

Most authentication systems need "things you know", but more advanced systems need "things you are", explained NBC News. 

Fingerprints and retina scans fall into the latter category but can still be penetrated - by amputating the corresponding body part. 

The university is teaming up with Autonomous ID, a company based in Ottawa, Canada, to create passwords based on behavioural validation. 

Gait analysis is already being used as a sophisticated laboratory technique by which modern electronics are used to incorporate information from a number of inputs to illustrate and analyze the dynamics of gait. It describes for the clinician (physician, surgeon, therapist) in quantitative and dynamic terms the movement of the body and its limbs and the changing relationships of one extremity to other extremities during motion (e.g.: walking, leg raising). It helps the clinician judge what are the forces resulting in a dysfunction in movement of a limb and what is the result of compensating for the dysfunction; to put it another way, what is cause and what is effect. 

Though China has developed Gait already as a toll for espionage and security purposes, much is not known about it due to high security and secretive practices in science and research by Chinese authorities.

Mumbai boy becomes youngest skydiver

Krish Shanghvi, the eight-year old from Mumbai recently became the youngest skydiver on the planet, when he jumped off a plane from an altitude of 10,000 feet in Mozzel Bay, South Africa.

The act involved a thrilling 45-second free fall at 200 kilometers per hour, before the parachute unfurled.

Shanghvi achieved the dive in tandem with trainer Mr. Henk Van Wky.

His elder brother, Parth, holds the record of becoming the youngest scuba diver in the world. Parth achieved the feat in February 2010 in Goa.

Speaking to mediapersons, Shanghvi's father, Mehul Upendra Shanghvi, said that Krish was inspired by Parth's achievements.

"Getting inspired by his brother's feat, young Krish, who was only six years then, wanted to break some record," he said.

"We thought of skydiving, but in India the minimum age for skydiving is 16. So, we contacted some skydiving centers in Slovenia, where there is no age restriction for skydiving. But Krish was too small to fit in the Harness then" he added.

The standard three student from SVKM International School in Vile Parle has been awarded a certificate by Unique World Records, and the family has also applied to Limca Book of Records to have his name included.

Previously, the youngest skydiver in the world was Romanian girl Valentina Mihanciu, who performed the feat at the age of nine.

The record of being the youngest skydiver in India was held by Kolkata's Anaina Malik who had achieved the feat at the age of 13, jumping in Mauritius.

Smiley Emoticons turn 30 years old

The highly famous ':-)' emoticon, that is used by web and text users all over the globe, has marked its 30th birthday, a computer scientist who created the iconic "smiley face" has said.

The computer symbol for "not serious" or now more generally "happiness," made up of a colon, dash and a right parenthesis, was born into existence at 11:44 a.m. on September 19, 1982, after it was posted on an online bulletin board by Carnegie Mellon computer scientist Scott Fahlman.

"If someone made a sarcastic remark, a few readers would fail to get the joke, and each of them would post a lengthy diatribe in response," the New York Daily News quoted Fahlman, as writing, in a post on Carnegie Mellon's website about the invention of the sideways smile.

"The problem caused some of us to suggest (only half seriously) that maybe it would be a good idea to explicitly mark posts that were not to be taken seriously," he added. 

"In the midst of that discussion it occurred to me that the character sequence :-) would be an elegant solution ... So I suggested that," he said.

Fahlman also suggested the reverse, what has come to be known as a sad face, by using the other parenthesis marker.

"This convention caught on quickly around Carnegie Mellon, and soon spread to other universities and research labs via the primitive computer networks of the day," he wrote. 

Still on staff at Carnegie Mellon, Fahlman is modest about his invention, which he says he's never profited from.

"I probably was not the first person ever to type these three letters in sequence, perhaps even with the meaning of 'I'm just kidding' and perhaps even online. But I do believe that my 1982 suggestion was the one that finally took hold, spread around the world, and spawned thousands of variations," Fahlman wrote.

‘Popinator’ shoots popcorn directly into your mouth

WASHINGTON: A voice-controlled popcorn shooter ‘Popinator’ that works on demand has been introduced by the readers of Mashable to it.

According to the Mashable reader, Popinator is an automated popcorn launcher that tosses popcorn at your mouth every time you say “pop.”

It says that the device is equipped with a microphone that recognizes the key word, decides your location and then launches a piece your way.

The sales representative for the company, the Popinator is just a prototupe right now and it is still in the planning stages. Source:http://www.geo.tv