iPhone OS gets an update

The long wait is almost over for iPhone and iPod touch owners as the much-­anticipated iPhone OS 3.0 update which will available soon for download June 18.

Users can expect a number of significant improvements with the newly added Spotlight search feature that will allow them to search the entire device across mail, iPod music/videos and other applications.

Other notable changes include the long requested widescreen keyboard modes for all major applications such as Mail and Notes that will give users a larger keyboard to type messages on.

Extending beyond the keyboard, Apple has also added widescreen modes for other key applications like contacts and Stocks, which will show stock performance in greater detail.

Cut and paste, another long-awaited feature also marks its debut in iPhone OS 3.0. Users can now double tap on text to highlight text they wish to cut or copy or accurately drag across text to select specific words.

There’s also a handy clipboard where you can store all your copied text onto for later use.

Additionally, the feature also extends to selecting text and pictures on webpages to be copied and pasted on e-mails.

The new update will also bring localised language support in Bahasa Malaysia.

Other updates like the ability to send MMS messages and Internet tethering, whereby the iPhone 3G serves as a modem for a computer, are still unconfirmed. For more up-to-date information on this, visit
www.maxis.com.my/iphone.

The iPhone OS 3.0 update is free for iPhone users while iPod touch users will have to pay US$9.95 (RM35.10). The update is available via iTunes 8.2.

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Father’s Day Gift

Teddy Bear for Men, what do you think?

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World's 10 ugliest plants

Ugly Top 10

1 Bastard cobas (Cyphostemma juttae)

A slow-growing, ornamental plant that can reach 6ft, also called wild grape, tree grape and Namibian grape. Plants are found in Namibia. The large shiny leaves tend to fall during winter and grape-like bunches appear near the end of summer.

2 Birthworts (Aristolochia gigantea)

Also referred to as pipe vines, they are widespread and appear in various climates. The basis of the plant is an intertwining stem with simple leaves. The flowers have a strong scent.

3 Elephant's trunk (Pachypodium namaquanum)

Found in the North Cape of Namibia, the plant consists of a thick trunk, densely covered in spines. There is a crown at the top appearing during the growing months of winter, and velvet-textured flowers appear from August to October.

4 Corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanium)

This plant only blooms every four to six years within its 40-year life expectancy. The flower is described as the world's largest; reaching 5ft high and 4ft wide. For eight hours of the three-day bloom, the flower emits a smell that is described as rotting flesh, attracting a carrion-eating beetle, for pollination. The plant is also known as an aphrodisiac.

5 Tree tumbo (Welwitschia mirabilis)

The plant, found in south-west Africa, specifically Namibia and Angola, is considered a living fossil. Initially, the plant grows two leaves from one thick trunk and, as the plant continues to grow, the leaves may split. Some plants are estimated to be more than 1,000 years old.

6 Thorn of the cross (Colletia paradoxa)

Also known as gigs, curumamil, cross or crown of the cross. From South America, this slow-growing shrub with greyish flowers blooms in March and April. Often used as an ornamental plant for its fragrance, it is under threat of extinction, due to a loss of habitat.

7 Stinky squid (Pseudocolus fusiformis)

A mushroom first reported in Pittsburgh, North America, in 1915. Often found at the edge of woods, in parks and gardens, usually in summer and autumn. The body first resembles a puffball, but later splits to form a stalk with arms that taper.

8 Sea onion (Bowiea volubilis)

Also known as the climbing onion, this plant originates from South Africa. The bulb is a pale green, with half growing underground. New branches appear each year, making it look like an elongated asparagus, with greenish flowers.

9 Vegetable sheep (Raoulia eximia)

Named because of the way it looks from a distance, this is found in New Zealand's Southern Alps. This shrub forms grey-white mounds and can spread 5ft. Tiny leaves are covered in hairs, with flowers beneath.

10 Monkey cups (Nepenthes)

Also commonly known as tropical pitcher plants, this plant comes from a family of more than 120 species. They are vine-forming, originating from south China, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. The plant grows as a climbing vine.

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Getting married or moving in with a partner will make you fat

Couples who live together are more than twice as likely to become obese than those who live separately, new research shows.

The study to be published next month in the journal Obesity also showed that the risk of obesity rises the longer people live together.

Penny Gordon-Larsen, associate professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, found some positive health benefits to marriage, including decreased cigarette smoking and lower mortality.

She said people living together – married or not – tended to eat meals together, possibly cooking bigger meals or eating out more often than they did when they were single.

They were more likely to watch television together instead of going to the gym or playing a sport. Her research found that couples who lived together for more than two years – especially those who were married – were most likely to display similar obesity patterns and physical behaviours.

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Karaoke Fail

Korean boy singing "Tuts My Barreh", by Mariah Carey.
Don't miss audition by Bulgarian Idol, Ken Lee (Mariah Carey - Without You)

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New Candidate for Dumbest Robber of All Time

This world is full of laughter..

14-year-old hit by 30,000 mph space meteorite

A schoolboy has survived a direct hit by a meteorite after it fell to earth at 30,000mph.

Gerrit Blank, 14, was on his way to school when he saw "ball of light" heading straight towards him from the sky.

A red hot, pea-sized piece of rock then hit his hand before bouncing off and causing a foot wide crater in the ground.

The teenager survived the strike, the chances of which are just 1 in a million - but with a nasty three-inch long scar on his hand.

He said: "At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand.

"Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder."

"The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards.

"When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road," he explained.

Scientists are now studying the pea-sized meteorite which crashed to Earth in Essen, Germany.

"I am really keen on science and my teachers discovered that the fragment is really magnetic," said Gerrit.

Chemical tests on the rock have proved it had fallen from space.

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A Boob Radio

Tweak the left nipple to adjust volume and the right to tune the station. Just don't try this on your significant other! $21

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Hotter and drier days ahead with El Nino

Malaysians can expect hotter and drier days till September as an El Nino phenomenon is forming.

While the real extent of the El Nino impact could only be gauged sometime in August, more open burning was expected to contribute to more haze, the Meterological Department said in a report.

Malaysia experiences a hot and dry season in the months of June, July and August and temperatures range between 33C to 34C.

It is understood that temperatures could soar another 3C during El Nino.

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World's First Nissan GT-R 500GB Portable Hard Drive

More than just an external storage device, this Nissan GT-R gadget on eBay "was created using a 1/18th scale Jada Toys Nissan GT-R mated with loving and delicate care to a 500GB Seagate 2.5 inch hard drive."

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World's Smallest Microwave

It is the world's smallest, portable microwave and can be powered via a link to the USB port on a laptop computer.

The turquoise device -called the Beanzawave - has been created in partnership with Heinz to allow workers tied to their desks to create a warm snack, or hot drink, to see them through the day.

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Sleeping on a problem really can solve it, claim scientists

Sleeping on a problem really can help solve it, claim scientists who discovered a nap can improve your powers of creativity.

Researchers found that people were able to think more laterally and quickly after a snooze and that if they dreamed the ability was even more enhanced.

The scientists believe that "incubating" a problem often leads to a solution but that the effect was increased when people entered a phase of sleep known as Rapid Eye Movement (REM).

They believe that REM which occurs most predominantly just before we awake – helps the brain make connections between unrelated subjects.

REM sleep they concluded was "important for assimilating new information into past experience" to come up with solutions to creative problems.

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Forever 21

Webcomic @amazingsuperpowers.com

Addicted to Twitter

Follow me @cwkhang if you twit

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Interesting Car Sticker

Be careful when you buy one for your car.

World's Fastest Clapper

Kent “Toast” French has developed his own technique for clapping. He combined his unique style with amazing agility and endurance to set the world's record for the most claps in one minute--an astonishing 721 times in 60 seconds! That's a rate of 12 claps per second.

Dictionary Lookup via Instant Messenger

To start using the Lookup bot from your instant messengers, add the contacts given below to your IM account.

* Gtalk/Jabber – lookup@bot.im
* For AIM, MSN and Yahoo - please get the contacts from here

Once you have added the bot to your IM network, start a conversation with it. To lookup dictionary for words, just type this message into the conversation window:

dict word

Replace word with whatever word you want to find the dictionary entry for, for example “dict twitter” will give you results for Twitter.

Click here for more information about this Lookup Bot.

Usage of Internet Explorer

One and only 'surf' on IE was to download Firefox.

Japanese Hair Removal Ad

Only Japanese can think of this.

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Man on a mission to visit every Starbucks in the world

A software engineer from California is on a mission to visit every single Starbucks coffee shop on the planet. Winter, 37, has spent 12 years drinking coffee in 9,100 chain stores. He estimates he has 3,000 left.

In each Starbucks, Winter drinks one cup of regular brewed coffee. He takes a photo and posts it on his website, starbuckseverywhere.net.

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Students to get discounts for motorbike licenses

Concerned about the rising number of students who ride their motorcycles to school without a licence, the Road Safety Department and Safety Driving Centre has decided to offer them licences at a discounted rate from next month.

A survey conducted among secondary school students found that many of them did not possess a valid licence because the cost was beyond their reach, Road Safety Department director-general Datuk Suret Singh said.

He said parents should not allow their children to ride motorcycles without a licence as the authorities would take stern action against them in addition to confiscating the vehicle.

“Under the motorcycle licence promotion campaign, those who are applying for the B2 class of below 250cc will get a 50% discount from June 1 to Aug 31,” he told reporters after signing a memorandum of understanding between the Road Safety Department and Safety Driving Centre here Friday.

The three-month promotion is targeted at secondary school students aged between 15 and 19 and the licence package starts from RM199.

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Vitamin D: Why You Need This Vitamin Now

You may already know that vitamin D can help build strong teeth and bones, but wait until you hear what else it can do for the rest of your body. D can keep you trim, boost your mood, ward off sniffles, drastically cut your risk of cancer, and more.

“We could prevent 150,000 cases of cancer annually if we could just increase vitamin D to optimal levels,” says Cedric Garland, a doctor of public health, a leading vitamin D researcher, and a professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of California, San Diego.

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Robert Kuok (net worth US$9bil) still Malaysia's richest man

Tan Sri Robert Kuok, the Kuok Group patriarch, remains Malaysia's richest with a net worth of US$9 billion, down from US$10 billion a year ago, according to the 2009 Forbes Asia Malaysia Rich List. In a statement here today, Forbes said Kuok has held the top spot every year since Forbes Asia began ranking the 40 richest Malaysians in 2006.

Businessman Tan Sri Ananda Krishnan held on to his second place with a net worth of US$7 billion,just down from US$7.2 billion last year. He has also maintained the same ranking every year since 2006.

Together, Kouk and Ananda account for 44% of the top 40's wealth. They are also the two richest people in Southeast Asia.

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Telling your wife she's not pretty may soon be an offence

A husband tells his wife that she is no longer pretty in an attempt to humiliate her can be classified as an emotional violence offence if amendments are made to the Domestic Violence Act (DVA)1994.

The plan is to amend the DVA for the inclusion of a clause on emotional violence against women.

Currently, they are only protected only against physical abuse, Women's Development Department director-general Datuk Dr Noorul Ainur Mohd Nur said.

She said on Wednesday that the aim for proposing the amendment was to safeguard women both physically and emotionally.

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Study confirms mothers-in-law are the chief cause of divorces

Every married person knows it, but a local study has confirmed it – mothers-in-law are the chief cause of divorces, especially in the Indian community.

Data in the Malaysia Community and Family Study 2004 by the National Population and Family Development Board (LPPKN) revealed that “meddlesome in-laws” is the number one reason why Indian couples get divorced.

It is also among the top three factors for divorce among the Malays and Chinese. The other two factors are incompatibility (42.3%) and infidelity (12%).

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Tyson's daughter dies after accident in home

The four-year-old daughter of boxer Mike Tyson died at a hospital on Tuesday, a day after her neck apparently got caught in a treadmill cord at her Phoenix home, police said.

Exodus Tyson had been on life support and police have said their investigation showed her injury on Monday was a "tragic accident."

"There are no words to describe the tragic loss of our beloved Exodus," the family said in a statement.

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Singapore records first H1N1 flu case

Singapore’s health ministry has confirmed the country’s first influenza A (H1N1) case, a 22-year-old local woman who picked up the virus after visiting New York.

The ministry said in a statement Wednesday that the woman was in New York from May 14 to 24, and reported developing a cough on her flight back to Singapore earlier this week.

The ministry says it has quarantined people with whom the woman has been in close contact and is searching for passengers who were on the same flight from New York.

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Meet the toddler who's a pool prodigy

A New York toddler still in nappies has a growing reputation as a pool shark with a mean bank shot - even though he has to stand on a chair to reach the table.

Two-year-old Keith O'Dell Jr has pool shooting videos posted on YouTube, has his own website (www.poolprodigy.com) and is the youngest member of the American Pool Association.

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Half price on DiGi prepaid calls this Thursday

About a million DiGi prepaid customers suffered a nationwide service disruption yesterday morning. The mobile communications company is apologising and offering compensation for the inconvenience.

DiGi Communications said in a press release that it is offering all its prepaid service subscribers 50% off on voice calls this Thursday, from 7am to 7pm, as a small way to make up for yesterday’s disruption.

The disruption lasted from 8am to 11.45am and impacted both voice and SMS services.

“I take this extremely seriously. Our customers have an expectation to be always on and I am disappointed that they have been inconvenienced, and for that I apologise,” said DiGi chief executive officer Johan Dennelind.

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The Most Scientific Tattoo You'll See Today

Joe writes, “My tattoo is 3 lines of equations, the top is the Born Oppenheimer Approximation, the second line is the equation in the form of a 3-Dimensional Schroedinger Equation, and the solution in the form of a Schroedinger Equation. As a biochemist and molecular biophysicist I studied a lot of this stuff and I must say, Schroedinger was my favorite and well, I had to do it. The ink was done at Red Sky Studios in Tucson, AZ by artist Lisa.”

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I wish

Careful what you wish for.

Swine flu affects us all

Nobody wants to play with me.. :(

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New YouTube street biking star gets 2.5m hits in a week

A video of difficult biking tricks, where street trial rider Danny MacAskill jumps onto spiked fences and leaps over rooftops, has had more than 2.5m YouTube hits in a week.

Goose photographed flying upside down

A photographer has taken a picture of a greylag goose, as the bird was flying upside down.

Paul Stancliffe, of the British Trust for Ornithology, based at Thetford, was able to explain the bird's bizarre behaviour.

"It looks like this bird is in mid-whiffle," he said.

"When geese come in to land from a great height they partake in a bout of whiffling, this involves the bird twisting and turning to spill air from their wings and thus lowering their speed prior to landing.

"In 36 years of birdwatching I have seen this many times, particularly when watching pink-footed geese on the north Norfolk coast coming in to roost in the late afternoon and evening. I have, however, never seen a photograph of a bird in mid-whiffle like this. It is an amazing photograph."

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'Alien skull' spotted on Mars

UFO spotters are claiming they have spotted an alien skull on Mars after NASA beamed back satellite images from the planet.

At first glance it looks like a rocky desert - but this image of the Mars landscape has got space-gazers talking.

An oddly shaped space boulder appears to show eye sockets and a nose leading to speculation it might be a Martian skull.

Internet forums are full of chatter about the picture, taken by a panoramic NASA camera known as Spirit.

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Human Beatbox Genius Kid

Amazing talent of BeatBoxing, watch and be amazed.

Parallel parking gone wrong

Twenty-one (your count?) very sad attempts at parallel parking. Enjoy!

Damn, I'm a little bit over the speed limit

Vrooom.. Vrooom... :)

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Millions of women 'buy dresses too small to lose weight'

Millions of Britain's women buy under-size clothes as an incentive to help them lose weight, a survey has found.

More than a third of women deliberately buy clothes which are too small for them because they are determined to slim down enough to fit into them one day, it found.

The research found that on average these women confessed to buying three under-size items of clothing each.

This means about 24 million dresses, skirts, blouses and trousers hanging idly in the country's wardrobes --- as their owners battle to fit into them.

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Showering during the day helps productivity

Showering during the working day helps employees become more productive and more creative, according to a new study.

Four businesses - a restaurant, an architect firm, an advertising agency and a lingerie company - took part in the eight-week study, conducted by PR firm Lucre.

Staff took a shower break in addition to their usual daily wash - and results showed improvement across a range of areas, from mood to productivity.

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Schoolgirl goalkeeper scores twice from her own penalty box

Emily Dickson, a schoolgirl goalkeeper, is thought to have broken a Football Association record after scoring twice in a single match from her own penalty box.

Emily, 14, stunned her team-mates and the opposition when she launched two huge drop kicks more than 100m down the full-sized pitch.

With both attempts, the ball bounced over the opposing keeper and into the net during the under-15s match.

Emily, from Broxbourne, Herts, is now awaiting confirmation from officials, who believe that her effort is an FA record.

Although Emily is in line for an FA record, she is still one goal away from the world title.

The Guinness record for most goals scored by a goalkeeper in one game is three, and was achieved by José Luis Chilavert of Paraguay for the club Velez Sarsfield in their 6-1 defeat of Ferro Carril Oeste in the Argentine Primera Division, on November 28, 1999.

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Drinking large amounts of cola can cause paralysis

Chronic consumption of the drink can cause a condition called hypokalaemia, in which levels of potassium in the blood fall, in some patients. Symptoms can range from mild weakness and constipation to paralysis.

Researchers said that family doctors should look out for muscle problems in people who drink large amounts of cola, after finding that patients who drank between two and 10 litres a day developed the condition.

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Stunt driver defies gravity on the world's biggest loop-the-loop

It was definitely not the time to be having second thoughts. For the driver attempting the world's largest loop-the-loop, a moment's hesitation could have been fatal.

If stuntman Steve Truglia had been too timid in his acceleration, his yellow Toyota would have reached the top of the track and dropped like a stone. But if he had driven in too fast, the G-force generated could have knocked him unconscious.

Either way, his route down from the high point of the 40ft loop would have been, shall we say, less than graceful. But as this extraordinary picture shows, Mr Truglia's timing and speed were perfect.

The breathtaking stunt - planned with the help of a Cambridge physicist - was filmed at a Suffolk airbase for Channel Five's car show Fifth Gear.

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Japanese man sets record for paper plane flight

A Japanese engineer has set the world record for the longest flight for a paper airplane, keeping his design aloft for 27.9 seconds.

After his record flight, Takuo Toda said that his achievement was merely the next step in his ambition of launching a paper plane from space.

Mr Toda, who is chairman of the Japan Origami Airplane Association, performed his feat at a competition in Hiroshima Prefecture in April and it has now been confirmed by Guinness World Records as the longest ever flight by a paper plane.

"I had thought that the world record was impossible to break, but the key to breaking the record is how high you fly it," Mr Toda told The Daily Telegraph.

Made of a single sheet of folded paper with no cuts, his design measured 10 cm from tip to tail. He plans to use the same shape to try to break his own record at another event for paper plane enthusiasts in September.

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