fysdt writes "Four people were taken to hospital and a glass door smashed as a near-riot broke out at Beijing's top Apple store among crowds rushing to snap up the popular iPad 2 tablet computer, state press said Sunday. Angry consumers began rushing the store on Saturday afternoon after a 'foreign' Apple employee allegedly stepped into the crowd to push and beat people suspected of queue jumping, the Beijing News said."

sdasher writes "Finally, there's a chance to combine your love of version control and parties: Gitionary. The brainchild of two MIT alums, it's a party game where you try to illustrate git commands. A set of gitionary cards (PDF) has been posted as well. Personally, I'm still holding out for the Debugging Python RPG."

In an attempt to reduce pressure on disappearing fish stocks, the EU's fisheries chief has proposed paying fisherman to catch floating plastic instead of fish. In a trial run, select Mediterranean fishermen will be given nets for scooping up the trash and will be paid for the amount of plastic that gets recycled. From the article: "...in future the scheme could turn into a self-sustaining profitable enterprise, as fleets cash in on the increasing value of recycled plastics. Cleaning up the rubbish will also improve the prospects for fish, seabirds and other marine species, which frequently choke or suffer internal damage from ingesting small pieces of non-biodegradable packaging." I look forward to the day that landfill mining becomes profitable.

It's not quite sharks with laser beams attached to their heads, but an Australian prison just got a guard dog with titanium teeth. Axel got his new metal chompers after he bit into a board, breaking many of his teeth. Veterinary dentist David Clarke says: "So much is spent on training working dogs that it ends up much cheaper to repair a dental problem than retire the dog. Prison dogs, police dogs, hunting, quarantine and customs dogs often suffer injuries in the course of their job."

arkenian writes "The BBC reports on a farm in the UK to be run by online subscribers to the MyFarm website voting on which crops to grow and livestock to rear. For a £30 annual fee, 10,000 farm followers will help manage Wimpole Home Farm, in Cambridgeshire. They will be asked to make 12 major monthly decisions during the course of the year as well as other choices. The National Trust says its MyFarm project aims to reconnect people with where their food comes from."

An anonymous reader writes "Employees at Foxconn facilities in China, used to manufacture the iPhone and iPad, were forced to sign a pledge not to commit suicide after over a dozen staff killed themselves over the last 16 months. The revelation is the latest in a series of findings about the treatment of workers at Foxconn plants, where staff often work six 12-hour shifts a week, 98 hours of overtime in a month, and live in dormitories that look and feel like prison blocks."

Lanxon writes "Designer Dominic Wilcox has come up with a Pinocchio-style 'finger-nose stylus' that lets you use your phone hands free, reports Wired. He came up with the design after he found that he wanted to use his touchphone in the bath. A wet hand is not a good touchscreen navigation device, so he found himself using his nose to scroll, but found it hard to see precisely where his nose was touching the screen. The solution was to create a nose extension 'finger' that would allow for navigation while holding the phone firmly in his one dry hand."

When an attendant on Hong Kong Airlines tells you to return your tray to its upright position, you'd better listen. The airline is training cabin crew in a form of kung fu called wing chun to aid them in dealing with drunk or unruly passengers. Lumpy Tang, winner of this year's Most Unfortunate Name contest, and newly hired attendant, says, "You cannot predict what will happen on the plane, so wing chun is good because it's so fast. I feel safer because I can defend myself and I'm happy to be one of the first cabin crew to learn wing chun in the world."

As a penetration tester Kevin Finisterre has hacked into everything from air-conditioning systems to some of the biggest banks in the world. But hacking into a police cruiser has to be one of his most unusual jobs. Hired by an unnamed municipal government, Kevin found that several IP addresses used by the city's police department would connect him into a Linux device carried in police cars. "Using little more than FTP and telnet commands, he then tapped into a digital video recorder used to record and stream audio and video captured from gear mounted on the vehicle's dashboard. He was shocked by the resulting live feed that eventually appeared on his computer screen."

itwbennett writes "There are tech fads that flare up quickly and then, pouf, they're gone (Tamagotchi, anyone?). And then there are technologies that industry bigwigs predict will follow that familiar pattern and instead end up withstanding the test of time. The Internet, for example, has famously failed to implode, despite dire predictions by Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe. And what about TV, the cornerstone of the American living room? Inventor Lee DeForest, known as one of the 'fathers of the electronic age,' declared TV a commercial and financial impossibility, a sentiment that was shared by 20th Century Fox exec Darryl Zanuck. And FCC engineer T.A.M. Craven was absolutely certain back in 1961 that there was 'no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States.'"

Many submitters have pointed out that Osama bin Laden's hideout is getting a lot of reviews on Google Maps. Some of my favorites of the 600+ so far include: "The hotel is obviously doing quite well, as evidenced by the fact that the cleaning crew is actually helicoptered in each evening, and in fact they go so far as to destroy any furniture that they feel is outdated or in need of repair," and "Privacy was great...until being leaked out on the Playstation Network."

If you think the idea of french kissing someone over the internet with a robotic tongue is kind of gross, go outside and enjoy your afternoon. For those of you still sitting here, The University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo has just what you've been looking for. The Kiss Transmission Device is a motion-sensing receptacle that records your tongue's movements and then sends that information to a corresponding machine in your partner's mouth. From the article: "In addition to real-time smooching, the Kiss Transmission Device can be programmed to 'remember' specific rotations. The pre-recorded information can then be accessed by multiple recipients. According to the inventor, this could be a good way for celebrities to get closer to their fans." The University gave no word on the possibility of tentacles in future models.

TomBifkin writes "A group of hearing-impaired men were recovering today after being stabbed during a night out in Florida when a fellow patron confused their sign language for gang signs. Alfred Stewart, 31, was at the Ocean's Eleven Lounge in Hallandale Beach to celebrate a friend's birthday with a group of friends, all of whom are deaf, NBC Miami reported. The group was communicating using sign language, but a woman at the bar thought the group was making gang signs in her direction. According to police, 45-year-old Barbara Lee became angry and confronted the group, but they motioned for her to leave them alone. She then left the bar, before returning with two others — including 19-year-old Marco Ibanez. Mr Ibanez allegedly pulled out a knife and stabbed Mr Stewart, two of his friends and a bouncer, during a confrontation at the club."

Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Atlantic Wire reports that Superman — Kal-El, the Man of Steel, the Last Son of Krypton — renounces his American citizenship in the latest issue of Action Comics. The moment everyone's talking about comes in a story called 'The Incident,' where Superman wants to fly to Tehran and offer moral support to Iranians protesting an oppressive regime but he's told that Iran will take it as an act of war. Superman decides to get out in front of the problem. 'I intend to speak before the United Nations tomorrow and inform them that I am renouncing my U.S. citizenship,' he tells the president's national security adviser. 'I'm tired of having my actions construed as instruments of U.S. policy.' While some conservative commentators opine that Superman just wants to get out of paying criminally high taxes to a certain merciless Democratic president, Scott Thills concludes that 'the genius of Superman is that he belongs to everyone, for the dual purposes of peace and protection. He's above ephemeral geopolitics and nationalist concerns, a universal agent unlike any other found in pop culture.'"

Sohaib Athar, a.k.a. @ReallyVirtual, had no idea the helicopters he was complaining about on twitter were part of the top secret mission that killed Osama bin Laden Sunday night. 10 hours before bin Laden's death was announced Athar posted: "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).” From the article: "During the raid, Athar speculates that he was two or three kilometers away from the shooting that took place. Once news broke that bin Laden had been killed in Abbottabad, Athar tweeted, 'Uh oh, now I’m the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.'”

The downside of not having ones base of children's stories crafted and maintained by trained storytime engineers from the Disney Corporation has reared its warty head in Russia and Ukraine. A map of purportedly Russian folktale characters' haunts has drawn fire from Ukrainians, who object to what they see as the appropriation (from Ukraine) of such famous characters as miraculously strong Ilya Muromets, the gold-producing Speckled Hen, and Kolobok ("a cheerful talking cake who flees animals eager to eat him"). This seems like nothing that couldn't be cleared up with some artfully mis-pointed highway signs and a few tons of papier-mâché.

nonprofiteer writes "An unnamed hotel is now putting RFID tags in their towels: 'The Honolulu hotel (the hotels have asked to remain anonymous, just to keep you guessing) says it was taking a bath to the tune of 4,000 pool towels per month, a number that it has reduced to just 750 (a savings of $16,000 per month). And that's just at the pool.' It's unclear what they do if the towel flies to the Midwest."

angry tapir writes "Turning seemingly normal comments into sexual innuendo by adding the words 'That's what she said' is a cultural phenomenon. This has led some to wonder whether it is possible to determine when it is appropriate to add those magic four words to a sentence. As it turns out, identifying humor through software is hard. Two researchers at the University of Washington, however, were willing to give it their best shot. In a recently released paper entitled 'That's What She Said: Double Entendre Identification,' the researchers describe what they've found and introduce their new approach to the problem: 'Double Entendre via Noun Transfer' or DEviaNT for short." It's good to know that someone is trying to make sure the human race gets a sufficiently lewd AI one day.

InsertWittyNameHere writes "Turkish police disguised themselves as doctors, then knocked on people's doors to see how easily they would fall for a confidence scam. They told residents they were screening for high blood pressure and handed out pills. They were alarmed when residents at 86 out of 100 households visited on Tuesday swallowed the pills immediately. A local gang had been using the same technique to give people heavy sedatives and then burgle them."

RedEaredSlider writes "Now even vending machines are getting in on the social media act. Pepsi has rolled out a new machine that can send a soda to a friend, using a Facebook-like functionality. From the article: 'Along with buying a soda with either cash or credit, the Social Vending System allows people to send a user a soda as a gift. All they have to do is enter the recipient's name, mobile number and a personalized text message. Consumers can even send a video along with the gift. Once received, the recipient will learn where they can redeem it.'"