杏吧原创

READER Tony Graham has discovered an interesting piece of news in Rapport, the magazine for Peugeot owners. An article entitled 鈥淗ollywood goes green鈥� announces: 鈥淭he film The Day After Tomorrow, starring Emmy Rossum, produced enough CO₂ gas during its production to drive 3000 cars for a year.鈥�

Sadly, many readers of Rapport will be so surprised by this hitherto unpublicised development of the internal combustion engine that they may well miss the sentence that follows: 鈥淏ut, by teaming up with climate change company Future Forests, they cancelled out the damage they did by investing in climate-friendly technology and cultivating forests. Visit .鈥�

On reading this, an intrigued Feedback visited the Future Forests site as instructed, only to discover that the organisation was conceived, like many good things (and probably quite a few human beings), at the Glastonbury music festival in south-west England. Since the idea was mooted round a campfire by a group of festival goers including The Clash singer Joe Strummer in 1966, Future Forests has planted 2.5 million trees to fight the good fight against global warming.

And if you look very hard at the credits at the end of The Day after Tomorrow, you might just see a reference to it. But you鈥檒l have to be patient 鈥� it comes right at the end, when most people have left the cinema.

COMPUTER chip giant Intel recently hired a huge film and TV studio in London to demonstrate 鈥渢he future of home entertainment鈥�.

The event began with a video spectacular in which Intel revealed that 鈥淢arconi invented TV鈥�. We always thought Marconi invented radio, and left it to the likes of Philo Farnsworth and John Logie Baird to come up with television, but never mind.

Intel then showed off a PC equipped with new chips that enable it to play music and movies the owner has previously copied from CDs or DVDs onto its hard disc. To prove how well it all worked, the hit movie Master and Commander was projected onto a huge wide screen with surround sound cranked up to deafening level.

During question and answer time several journalists were falling over each other to ask the obvious question. How had Intel managed to copy the Master and Commander DVD to the PC鈥檚 hard disc, when DVD copy protection technology and copyright laws are designed to prevent this?

Intel鈥檚 marketing director had a very simple answer: 鈥淵ou can download software files from the Internet to do this.鈥�

But surely this is illegal?

鈥淭he business model is changing,鈥� assured Mr Intel. 鈥淭he industry understands what consumers want.鈥�

Sadly, there were no movie moguls in the studio to confirm that Hollywood really is now happy for the public to copy hit movies onto their computers.

FEEDBACK has always been a sucker for gadget catalogues, often finding quite useless objects wholly irresistible. The latest catalogue from electronics chain Maplin brings proud news of a 鈥渘ew product鈥� that costs only 拢15.

It鈥檚 a box that fits into one of the 鈥渂ays鈥� on a PC that normally takes a CD-ROM drive. Instead of taking a disc, Maplin鈥檚 box has a hole in the middle that works as a 12-volt socket, of the kind fitted to car dashboards.

Why, you may well ask? You can use it to 鈥渓ight cigarettes from your PC鈥� explains Maplin.

So at last we have found one gadget that is wholly resistible.

FOLLOWING an email from the European Society of Magnetic Resonance in Neuropediatrics, Harry Parkes logged on to the organisation鈥檚 website. He went to the 鈥淏ecome a Member鈥� section and then clicked on the link to the membership application form , to be greeted with this statement: 鈥淚f you have no Internet access you may print out the following form and fax it to the Treasurer of the ESMRN as stated below.鈥�

HOPING to buy a keyboard for his palmtop, David Singer found a company called Citipack that makes just such a device. He was doubly impressed when he read the 鈥淐ompany Info鈥� section of Citipack鈥檚 website, which told him: 鈥淥ver 100 per cent of the staff has a college-level education or above鈥�.

MOST remarkable is the projection television set discovered by Keith Grady for sale on the Empire Stores website. It has a 43-inch screen (of which 1.09 metres is visible) and it weighs in at a mere 鈥�50.700000000000003 kilograms鈥� 鈥� though the website doesn鈥檛 tell us if this is before or after dusting.

WHEN Linda Hodgson purchased a Philips digital baby-bath and room thermometer, her satisfaction on observing that it could display to the nearest 0.2 degrees was dented somewhat by the small print of the documentation, which told her: 鈥淎ccuracy 卤 1 degree.鈥�

While shopping in Tesco supermarket recently, Tony Park noticed a section of the display labelled 鈥渋nvisible thread鈥�. It appeared to be sold out, but Park wasn鈥檛 sure