IT CERTAINLY sounded like good news when NTT DoCoMo in Japan revealed plans for a lip-reading mobile phone (6 April, p 19). But even if the company can get the system to work reliably, will the kind of people who talk loudly into mobile phones ever use it?
Feedback was recently on a slow train from London to Bracknell, a town where many of Britain鈥檚 high-tech companies are based. During the whole journey a young lady talked so loudly into her phone that we could hear her even after moving seats to try and get some peace and quiet.
Most of the calls were about her company鈥檚 email system and how it worked. Usernames, passwords and remote access details were all shouted out, loud and clear. By the end of the journey everyone in the carriage had enough information to hack into the company鈥檚 IT system, steal secrets and wreak corporate havoc.
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We dutifully wrote nothing down and afterwards tried hard to forget everything we had been forced to hear. Perhaps everyone else on the train that day was equally honest. But multiply the experience by the number of trains that routinely carry commuters who shout secrets, and the only surprise is that companies have any security left.
WHAT IS it about urologists? Volume 32 of the journal Aktuelle Urologie recently ran a study on premature ejaculation by N. Kreutzer, F. Sommer, T. Klotz and U. Engelmann. Three groups of 15 men鈥攐ne comprising patients complaining of premature ejaculation, one of healthy volunteers and the other of European urologists鈥攚ere asked to have their sexual intercourse timed by their partners using a stop watch. The results were as follows:
鈥淚n group 1 (patients with premature ejaculation) an average period of 2 minutes and 32 seconds was recorded between start of intercourse and ejaculation. In group 2 (healthy volunteers) the average time was 3 minutes and 1 second. The differences were not statistically significant. The average time in group 3 (urologists) was 5 minutes and 58 seconds.鈥�
The team conclude that 鈥渢he subjective impression of patients of 鈥榯oo early ejaculation鈥� is not sufficient to establish the diagnosis of premature ejaculation鈥�.
All of which is very interesting. But what is surely much more interesting is the staying power of the urologists鈥攚hich the researchers don鈥檛 comment on at all.
ARE OTHERS being coy as well? There鈥檚 a paper in the journal Insectes Sociaux (vol 49) by P. T. Starks and J. M. Peters entitled 鈥淪emi-nondestructive genetic sampling from live eusocial wasps, Polistes dominulu and Polistes fuscatu鈥�.
Does that mean the sampling was only a little bit destructive?
READER Liz Richardson called her doctor鈥檚 surgery recently to check on the time of an appointment about her depression. It cannot have helped that they鈥檇 installed a new, extra-annoying call-waiting system with frequent fragments of recorded sentences interrupting tinny piped music.
But, she says, it was their choice of music that really took the biscuit. It was a rendition of the tune made famous as the theme to the TV series M.A.S.H. with the chorus 鈥渟uicide is painless鈥�.
鈥淏y the time my call was answered by a human,鈥� she reports, 鈥淚 was laughing hysterically and could hardly speak, but asked the receptionist whether they were aware of the music, and added that thankfully my depression was well under control.鈥� But she later pondered whether this could be part of a cunning ploy to cut waiting lists.
READERS WILL be all too aware of the countless spams, scams and scandals that abound on the Internet. But check out the McWhortle Enterprises website () for a one-in-a- million offer even Feedback found hard to resist.
McWhortle is cashing in on the current climate of paranoia about bio warfare by inviting people to invest in its 鈥渂io-hazard detector鈥�. It鈥檚 an investment opportunity for our times, and not one to miss. Feeling flush鈥攐r at least curious鈥攚e decided to give it a go, so we clicked on the 鈥渋nvest now鈥� button on the website.
Blushes all round. The next page to appear was not an application form for company shares, but the revelation that the McWhortle technology is a hoax and that the site itself was set up to teach people that they should not believe everything they read on the Internet.
Oh well. Luckier next time, perhaps.
ANOTHER of those truncated email subject headlines. A colleague here at New 杏吧原创 received a press release the other day headed 鈥淪moker sues tobacco company for fun鈥�. You can imagine his disappointment when he opened the email and discovered that the full subject line ran 鈥淪moker sues tobacco company for funeral costs鈥�.
AN ADVERTISEMENT for the Discovery Channel in a recent issue of the Sky Customer Magazine promotes the programme 21st Century Dad with these words: 鈥�9 hours鈥攚orking, 7 hours鈥攕leeping, 1 hour鈥攅ating, 1 hour鈥攃ommuting, 2 hours鈥攚atching the box. Where does modern man find time to be a dad?鈥�
During the other 4 hours in the day, perhaps?
A MINOR plumbing crisis left reader Andrew Cartmel acquainted with a range of products designed to unblock his sink. He was particularly struck by Mr Muscle Foamer, with its first instruction: 鈥淩un hot water into plughole for 1 minute.鈥�
Fine, so long as your sink isn鈥檛 blocked.
FINALLY, Tasmania鈥檚 driving licence renewal form asks respondents: Do You Suffer From: (Please tick鈥攁 tick indicates yes)
heart
disease
sleep apnoea
frequent
fainting giddy