Recently in Crime Category

If you thought Skateman was one of the worst superheroes of all time, you obviously haven't met Printerman. Well technically he isn't a superhero, more of a villain.

A free crowdsourcing app, Facewatch, has launched for the citizens of Surrey. Despite the name, it isn't Facebook's more evident stalking sister site, but an app that was originally launched by the MET in April to help convict suspects of the London riots.

The app, which encourages users to search through images and anonymously identify anyone they recognised, is now being used by Surrey Police to crack down on crime.

Citizens with a sense of civic duty can download the app to sift through the photographs if you have an iPhone, Android or BlackBerry smartphone - no neighbourhood watch patrols for the Windows community then.

Out of curiosity, Downtime downloaded the app and entered a random Surrey postcode. We were immediately faced with three faces to identify, one of which was so blurred that we doubt the person's own mother would be unable to identify them.

Is this the answer to burning questions at local neighbourhood watch meetings? Or perhaps it's more suited to aid the masked and caped vigilantes, sworn to protect Gotham City... err, I mean Guildford.

This may be a year old but it has just started circulating around social media sites again and, as you'll find out, it is too good to ignore. 

As if the saturated fat, salt and additives weren't already enough to worry about, in America it seems you also have to consider the threat of 50,000 volts before you opt for fast food. 

Police in Hampshire recently caught a motorist driving while using a laptop, writing down the answers to a radio quiz and sipping coffee, all at the same time.

 

According to the Daily Telegraph, the behaviour was observed during Operation Tramline, a crackdown on distracted drivers in which the force used a number of vehicles, including an unmarked HGV cab. 

 

The HGV cab allowed officers to observe and video offenders from an improved viewpoint.

 

The fact that the coffeee-drinking, laptop-using, radio quiz-participating driver is referred to, simply, as a "motorist" - whereas another offender, caught eating a pear with a knife, was revealed to be a man - suggests the motorist in question was at least more naturally disposed to multi-tasking. Ahem.

If you have a spare $620,000 under your pillow then this Boeing-powered machine could be yours. Just imagine.

It comes with an on-board iPad, loaded with digital avionics which help monitor the jet engine. There may well be a button that you could also push to make flames come out the back.

Putsch Racing, who currently own the car, are reminding potential buyers that the Batmobile is actually street legal in the US and that it can be fueled with either kerosene, diesel or Jet A jet fuel. Practical. Can't imagine it's fuel efficient though.

You've been arrested by the police. You've done something quite embarrassing. Things aren't looking good for you, so what do you do?

Tweet the incident and Twitpic the cop car? Really? Well yeah that's exactly what Noah Everett, twitpic founder, did.

Noah Everett tweeted to his 2.8 million followers that he was "Getting arrested...in the back of a cop car now," at 2am (EST) last week.

He then followed that up by tweeting "Proof" with a Twitpic of a photo of the inside of a police car.

Now, I think it's very commendable that Noah decided to stay true to his beliefs and his product by 'twitpic-ing' the event.

It shows real belief in the product no matter the circumstances. Similar to the Marlboro man smoking until he died of cancer.

If you're wondering why Noah, biblical name you know, was arrested in the first place, he clarified the matter with a couple more tweets.

Saying "...I guess you can't walk down your own street half naked...who knew - I got a free ride home by the nice police officer," following up with "...by half naked, I mean naked."

True class.

A 75 year old woman faces up to three years in prison for damaging property, but what's really annoyed everyone is that her actions cut off internet supply (Facebook, Twitter and of course porno) from Georgia and Armenia.

So how did this evil mastermind do it? Well, while collecting scrap metal on the village of Ksani, she came across a fibre optic cable and thought it looked like it'll get her a few bob to either fund her terrorist regime or a nice new pair of dentures.

She cut the cable and took it home unaware two countries had lost access to lolcats, upsidedowndogs.com and even Downtime (the irony).

The cable was repaired within hours as thousands complained of the inability to poke, but now the pensioner could face hard time.

Considering her age, she should get let off with a warning.

Something like this:

WARNING DO NOT CUT THIS CABLE!!

Not content with being blamed for the creation of bullying, pornography, paedophilia and the X-Factor (probably), it seems that now the internet is also about to be responsible for the imminent collapse of a central tenet of British democracy - trial by jury.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge - England's top judge no less - has claimed that social networking sites and the web are undermining the jury system, because those pesky jurors are using the internet to research the cases they are meant to be assessing based solely on the evidence in front of them.

Judge Judge cited a case where some jurors had researched a case of rape.

"If the jury system is to survive as the system for a fair trial... the misuse of the internet by jurors must stop," he said.

Downtime suggests a compromise: put the internet formally on trial for all the ills of which it is accused, and let the people decide.