Downtime

After a day's lecturing,  CW reader Mike F  chucked his shirt into the wash basket as usual.  After doing his washing at he weekend  he found his memory stick amongst he well washed and well spun clothes.  To his amazement, the 4Gb memory stick still worked with all files intact.  "I'm not sue to get my memory sticks clean" says Mike.  "I could stick with Ccleaner but perhaps I need the oxy action of Vanish?" 

Sent in by Mike F of Derby 

Do you have any memory stick stories. Send your stories to cwdowntime@rbi.co.uk

Android's not safe from odd apps either. Masternaut  has developed an augmented reality system for iPhone and Android devices, which it says give users "a real world view of the job they are about to perform and with it we can give them precisely what they need to get it done." Masternaut reckons the system is good for pothole spotters. "For highway maintenance, the system will quickly get maintenance teams to defects such as potholes. Just by pointing camera phone at the road the engineer will get an instant visual view of the problem with the job requirements."

Downtime wonders how else could people will actually use this app - point it at something (or someone) and get precise instructions on how to get the job done.

Speaking of iPhone Apps, Downtime has found one called "Where is my Phone?", which Little Worlds, the company that makes it, claims is both practical and fun. David Chomard, CEO of Little Worlds, says, "You can save a lot of time looking for your iPhone simply by whistling and it rings.

s.

Well that's not much fun David. Perhaps you can make the iPhone fart as you whiste. Looks like it can.

Fascism is proving second only to voyeurism in popularity in Italy, where a collection of speeches by dictator Benito Mussolini has become the second-most popular iPhone application.

The iMussolini application is attracting 1,000 customers a day and is topped only by an X-ray machine application that claims to let users "see their friends naked".

The Young Italian Communists have objected to the iMussolini application, but its creator has defended it as a useful history tool.

Burglar Roy Boodle will have plenty of time behind bars to contemplate his unwise online behaviour that proved criminals also need to be careful what they do online.

While social networking site members are being warned about risky behaviour online to protect them from identity theft by cyber criminals, Boodle's risky online behaviour landed him a three-and-a-half year jail term.

He stole £12 from a police station charity box, then boasted about it on Facebook. It was only a matter of time before police caught up with him and getting a conviction was not difficult, because Boodle had provided on the evidence online.

Looking at porn seems endemic at the SEC in the US.

According to the Washington Times many SEC employees and contractors have faced internal investigations after they were caught viewing pornography on their government computers.

One regional supervisor's computer showed more than 1,800 attempts to look up pornography in a 17 day period.

The SEC's own surveillance systems discovered the activity.  So the inappropriate behaviour was revealed by the SEC's own hand. Something the misbehaving workers are probably accustomed to if the increase in RSI absenteeism is anything to go by.

Apple's no doubt spent years on developing is newly unveiled iPad tablet style computing device, but obviously someone forgot to do their homework on the name.

Why choose iPad when it is already spoken for by Fujitsu, no less. But it does not stop there.

Security firm Magtek makes an iPad encryption device, Siemens user the name for engines and motors and a Canadian lingerie company uses it for some of its bras.

Apple could be excused for making such a silly error because it was supposedly so busy innovating, but even there the iPad comes up short.

Where is the camera for a start? A couple of input ports would also not go amiss, and...