Problems with selfie sticks in South Korea

Level Two Version

A lot of people take selfies. A selfie is a picture of you. Some people use a selfie stick. You put your phone on the stick. Then the phone can take a better picture of you

The stick and the phone work together. No wire connects the stick or the phone. The two things communicate wirelessly. South Korea says that this is a problem. The country says that this makes problems with radio signals.

South Korea controls selfie sticks. Over there, you must not use some selfie sticks.

Level Three Version

The world has a gone a bit selfie-crazy and while most people enjoy taking the odd snap, it seems that South Korean government has another idea, as it’s banned the selfie stick.

Yes, that’s right! If you’re caught selling the little metal rod that allows you to take a picture of yourself from more than arm’s length, you could get a fine or even worse, a jail sentence.

South Korea’s Radio Management Agency has outlawed the use of unregistered selfie sticks, as they believe devices that are put on them could interfere with radio frequencies. But not everyone shares this view.

“No matter how many people press the button at the same time, it’s not sufficient to interfere with other devices’ network or cause interference in frequencies in unlicensed bandwidth. So practically speaking, it’s hard to cause frequency interference with a Bluetooth selfie stick.”

Nonetheless, South Koreans face a fine up to £17,000 ($26,607) if they sell an unregistered selfie stick.

Source: Link 

Iron Man gives a boy a bionic arm

A group of people makes bionic arms. The arms are 3D printed. The people give the arms to children.

One boy doesn’t have two complete arms. One of his arms is OK. The other one is short. It ends with his elbow. The group gives the boy a bionic arm. It looks like Iron Man’s arm. Who gives the boy the arm? Iron Man, of course!

Robert Downy Jr is an actor. He plays Iron Man. He is the boy’s idol.

Level Three Version

He plays a bionic character in a film franchise, but it seems Robert Downey Jr is a superhero in real life, too. Posing as his Iron Man character, the star made this disabled fan’s dreams come true.

“Pleasure to meet you. Have another bionics expert on hand, so I thought I’d drop by.”

“Thank you.”

“Yes, it’s pleasure. Nice bowtie by the way.”

“Thanks.”

“How were your travels?”

“It was very good!”

“Well, I thought I'd bring one of my gauntlets to match it up with yours and see if everything's copacetic. You want to have a look?”

“Sure!”

Seven-year-old Alex Pring was born with a partially developed arm, seemed a little star-struck when he met his idol, but they soon hit it off.

“Do you know who that is?”

“Iron Man.”

“What’s his name?”

“Robert.”

“Great!”

The star then presented his friend with a new gift – a bionic arm of his very own. The 3D replica was even better than the real thing.

“Um, as you can see my light isn't working. Half the time, you know, I design one of these, it winds up breaking on me. But what I do is I keep working on it. Kind of like you're working on it with Albert.”

“He keeps working and working until he gets it right.”

“Yeah. I think yours is still a little bit more right than mine because at least, you know…”

“The light’s working.”

“The light works, yeah.”

The arm was made by a volunteer group started by Alberto Manero to make free bionic arms for kids. Downey Jr later took to his Facebook page, calling Alex the most dapper seven-year-old he's ever met.

“Bang, nailed it!”

Source: Link 

Monkey business!

A row has been going on about just who owns the copyright on a rather unusual selfie. It's of a crested black macaque who took a snap of herself with a British photographer's camera in Indonesia. The photographer wants Wikipedia to remove the picture from its website - but the Wikimedia Foundation which owns the site won't do it because it says he doesn't own the copyright.

There you are in a national park for a bit of wildlife photography when a monkey comes up to your camera, presses the shutter and takes a selfie unlike any other. That's what happened to British photographer David Slater when he went to Indonesia three years ago. The self-portrait of the crested black macaque went viral and websites like Wikipedia started using it without Mr Slater's permission.

When he wanted it taken off the site though his request wasrefused because the Wikipedia Foundation, which runs the site, said he didn't take the photo. Wikipedia has started removing links from EU search results under new 'right to be forgotten' rules, but Katherine Maher, from the Wikimedia Foundation, says Mr Slater doesn't qualify because he doesn't own the copyright to the image. Which begs the question, who does? And it's not the monkey...

Katherine Maher from the Wikimedia Foundation:
Under US copyright law the copyright can't be owned by a non-human in this case a monkey; sometimes it can be a machine. So what that means is that because the monkey took the photo and the photographer, although it was his camera, didn't take that photo there's nobody who copyright belongs to in this particular instance. It doesn't belong to the monkey, it doesn't belong to the photographer and in cases like that, images and other works fall into the public domain and so when something is in the public domain it can be used by anyone for any purposes.

Needless to say that's not what the photographer wanted to hear and he's done with monkeying about...

Photographer, David Slater:
You could look at it like this - the monkey was my assistant and therefore I was the artist behind the image and I allowed my assistant to press the button. You know, this needs to be tested in a court of law.

So prepare for the lawyers to start going ape on this one.



Source: Link 

China is the biggest source of tourists

The new middle classes want to see the world

New figures from China show that the country has consolidated its position as the world's biggest source of tourists. A total of 97 million Chinese tourists travelled abroad in 2013, according to China's National Tourism Administration.

Whatever measure you choose, Chinese tourists now top the globalrankings. Last year just shy of 100 million Chinese made foreign trips. And collectively they spent well over $100bn overseasoutstripping any other nationality. 

Little more than a generation ago few Chinese ventured abroad. But the restrictions have gone, most are now free to travel, although some minorities like Tibetans still complain of hurdlesgetting passports. 

And as China's economy has expanded, so have people's horizons. China's new middle classes want to see the world. The most popular destinations are in Asia and Europe, Thailand for beaches, France for history and culture. 

Britain, which requires a separate visa to the rest of Europe, has lagged behind. It received just 200,000 Chinese visitors two years ago, and is now trying to simplify the process so it doesn't miss out on China's new spenders.

Source: Link 

Twins meet after 78 years apart

Twins brought up separately are of particular interest to researchers

Twin sisters from Aldershot in the UK have met in the United States after spending 78 years apart. Elizabeth Hamel and Ann Hunt found each other after the longest period of separation ever recorded for twins.

It was an emotional reunion.

Elizabeth Hamel and Ann Hunt, twins:
Oh, how lovely to see you in the flesh.

Ann grew up never knowing she had a twin. Elizabeth stayed with her mother, who was in domestic service and could afford to bring up only one child. It wasn't until last year, with the women in their late 70s, that Ann discovered she had a twin sister, now living in America. 

Ann Hunt:
You're meeting someone in the flesh for the first time, and you know that you've been in the womb together for eight months.

The sisters have agreed to take part in a research programme looking into the lives of reunited twins. Dr Nancy Segal is the director of the Twin Studies Center at California State University. 

Dr Nancy Segal:
We want to get a comprehensive overview of their lives, their abilities, their interests and really put it all together as an important case study, because this is the world's longest-separated pair of twins.

Ann and Elizabeth plan to spend some time together. They have two lifetimes of memories to share, and new families to get to know.

Source: Link 

Internet piracy warnings

Illegal downloads could amount to a quarter of content consumed online in the UK

Warning emails are to be sent to people in the UK who are downloading music and films illegally. From 2015, up to four warnings a year will be sent to households suspected of copyright infringement.

Anyone who is found to have illegally downloaded material will be sent an alert offering advice on where to find legitimate sources of entertainment online.

But these messages will be capped for a year and there will be no penalties for offenders. It's a far cry from what the entertainment industry originally called for.

When the controversial Digital Economy Act was introduced in the final days of the Labour government in 2010, it included measures to cut off people's internet connections for repeated misuse.

This new three-year scheme is a compromise.

Latest industry figures suggest nearly a quarter of all content consumed online is illegally downloaded, including more than a billion music tracks within a year.

Source: Link 

Man survives 16 months at sea

How would you survive on a desert island?

It could be story from a Hollywood movie: a man alone at sea for more than a year, killing animals to stay alive. That's what Jose Salvador Albarengo from Mexico says happened to him when he was trying to sail to El Salvador.

Fish, birds, turtles - anything he could get hold of, he would kill with his bare hands. Jose told his rescuers he even drank turtle blood to stay alive during the 16 months he says he was adrift at sea. When his boat finally washed up at Ebon Atoll on Thursday, halfway between Hawaii and Australia, he was emaciated and barely able to walk. Ola Fjeldstad, a Norwegian anthropologystudent who's doing research in the Marshall Islands, said Jose's fiberglass boat bore the signs of the harrowing 7,500-mile detour:

Ola Fjeldstad, anthropology student:
We first found his boat, which was probably a 24-footer, engine broken, grown over with shells and other sea animals. And it had a live baby bird, a dead turtle, some turtle shells, fish leftovers and it was in pretty bad condition.

And there's tragedy in this tale. There were two people on the boat when it set off from Mexico to El Salvador in September 2012, but Jose said his companion had died several months earlier. Little is known about the circumstances, as so far he's had to draw pictures to communicate with people on the remote Pacific island because they can't understand Spanish. Locals have been nursingthe long-haired, bearded stranger back to health and Ola Fjeldstad says Jose's doing much better:

Ola Fjeldstad, anthropology student:
He's gained a lot of strength. He's been eating a lot of food, fish, rice, fruit and drinking coffee. He's in a lot better shape now. He's able to walk around by himself. He's cracking jokes!

There are good reasons to be cheerful; had he missed the Marshall Islands, it could have been another 1,000 or so miles before Jose would have had any hope of hitting land again.


Source: Link 

CBCP: Failed marriage not an argument for divorce

MANILA, Philippines –  Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president and Lingayen Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said that a failed marriage is not an argumentfor divorce.

In a statement titled, “CBCP Position Against the Divorce Bill and Against the Decriminalization of Adultery and Concubinage,” Archbishop Villegas said that marriage is a work in progress. Though it is not easy to make a relationship work, a couple should compromise in order to  work out their differences instead of resulting to divorce.

He added that once divorce would be legal in the country, the effort of a couple who are having problems in their relationship would lessen. They would talk less in trying to find solutions to their marital problems because they know that there is a “quick fix” available to solve their issues.

The CBCP president cited that one reason why some Filipinos are advancing a divorce law in the country is because they want “another go at marriage” despite failing at first. He compared this situation to a person test-driving a car and then getting a replacement if it proves to be below their standards.

He pointed out that there are enough legal remedies in the Family Code of the Philippines that a couple  could employ if their marriage isn’t working anymore, such as legal separation and annulment.

Regarding the statement of Senator Pia Cayetano that having no divorce law in our country is nothing to be proud of, Archbishop Villegas said it is also nothing to be apologetic for. Even if all other countries except ours have such law, it is not reason enough for us to have it as well.

He mentioned that there is no such thing as a perfect marriage, contrary to what romance writers would want us to believe from their novels.

“Matches are worked out on earth, not pre-fabricated in heaven,” he said

Mother allegedly killed two of her children, hid corpses in freezer for two years

DETROIT, Michigan — A 35-year-old mother has been arrested after the authorities discovered dead bodies of her two children that she hid inside a freezer at their own home in Detroit for two years, reports said.

The bodies were discovered on Tuesday when court officers came to their house to conduct an eviction.

Medical examiners waited until Friday for the corpses to thaw enough to determine the cause of their death.

On Friday afternoon, after the autopsies on both corpses, the medical examiner has determined the causes of death to be multiple blunt trauma and thermal injuries respectively. The manner for both children was determined to be homicide, the examiner added.

“Both bodies have been officially identified and the official times of death are listed as March 24, 2015 at 12:49 p.m. — the time their bodies came into the medical examiner’s possession,” Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office explained.

 

The accused, Mitchelle Blair, is charged with child abuse, but could also face murder charges once proven that she’s behind the crime of killing her 9-year-old son Stephen Gage Berry, and 13-year-old daughter Stoni Ann Blair.

According to Blair’s other teen daughter, it was her mother who killed her two siblings. She said she was even forced by her mother to put one of the bodies in the freezer.

She told authorities that she and her surviving 8-year-old brother have also experienced physical abuse in the hands of their own mother. She said they were beaten with a piece of wood and an extension cord, hit them with a hot curling iron, and burned with a clothing iron.

In August 2012, her mother tortured Stephen for almost two weeks before his death “by tying a belt around his neck, throwing hot water on him while in the shower, and putting a plastic bag over his head.”

When Stephen became ‘unresponsive’, Blair wrapped her dead son’s body using a bed cover and put him in the freezer.

In May 2013, Blair reportedly got very angry with her daughter Stoni when she said she didn’t like her two other siblings. Out of anger, Blair strangled Stoni using a T-shirt and suffocated her with a plastic bag.

Shortly after Stoni became unconscious, Blair forced her 17-year-old teen daughter to put her sister’s body in the same freezer where Stephen’s body is hidden.

The teen described their home  asa ‘house of horror’. She said her 8-year-old brother is also aware of the crime. Both of them have not attended school for two years.

The siblings have undergone medical exams and results revealed evidences of abuse, including 25 scars and injuries in the back, old and new. Both of them are now in state’s protective custody.

Groom tries to drown himself in river as bride is “too ugly”

HUBEI, China – A Chinese groom attempted to drown himself after seeing his bride for the first time, who, according to him is “too ugly, as reported by Metro.

Kang Hu, 33, stormed out of the wedding ceremony; apparently out of disgust after seeing his bride for the first time.

“I feel bad about what happened, but when I saw her she wasn’t what I had expected and I realized she would be bad for my image,” Kang said after being saved from a river.

Guests were shocked after he apologized to supposed-to-be bride Na Sung, 30, after saying she was “too ugly” before their supposed wedding in Shiyan, in central China’s Hubei province.

Kang’s friend, Chan Wang, said it was a very awkward moment for everyone.

  

“The bride was devastated, her family were furious, his family were furious, and we his friends were embarrassed. Kang has very exact tastes and had been forced into this marriage,” said Wang.

Kang hadn’t been able to get a glimpse of his bride because it was an arranged marriage.Reports said that the groom was forced into the marriage.

Few hours after the cancelled wedding ceremony, Kang was spotted lying face down in a river, where he jumps in an attempt to commit suicide. Bystanders immediately called the police upon seeing the man floating in the water.

Qan Tsui, 25, who took photos during the rescue, said: “He was fully clothed and floating face down in the water. He was unconscious and I thought he was dead.”

The groom was rushed to hospital, where doctors said he is now in a stable condition.

“My parents had arranged this and I couldn’t see any way out apart from suicide,” the groom said after he was brought to the hospital.

Man blows up mansion to evade taxes

Problem on taxes remains to be one of the biggest woes of people especially the bigwigs who amass large amount of income. Much like in the case of Filipino boxing champ Manny Pacquiao or even the owners of popular restaurants such as David’s Tea House who, from time to time, have to deal with the scrutiny of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

Just recently, the BIR reminded Pacquiao of his obligations, as his fight with Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is now in the offing. Pacman and BIR are mired in a legal battle over the athlete’s alleged past deficient income tax and value-added tax assessments.

The tax tiff and Filipinos’ reactions highlighted that the act of paying taxes is commonly viewed as a hateful thing to do which leave lasting woes to the taxpayers who sometimes resort to cheating their obligations so as to avoid releasing large sum of money in paying their dues.

But, can anyone do what a European nobleman did in order to evade taxes that resulted in one drastic measure like blowing up his house?

In a video, uploaded by archivist British Pathé on YouTube, Marquis de Maussabre was seen blowing up his dilapidated family mansion in 1955.

This may sound absurd and some may even think that only those who are not in their proper state of mind could do such act, but it happened.

Meanwhile, Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III announced recently that he will be filing such effect particular to Pacquiao’s fight with Mayweather in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 2.

Pimentel stressed that a congress-approved bill to grant special tax exemption to the boxing legend might further inspire him in his history-making megafight with American Floyd Mayweather.

The senator said that Pacman, being a Filipino, promotes the Philippines; thus, he added, the special tax incentive is a fitting tribute to the priceless package proudly promoting the country once again in the global map as he also noted that the marketing value for the country is considered “priceless.”

Watch Marquis de Maussabre’s video here: