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The next time you have a pesky swarm of bees in your back yard, don’t call the exterminator. According to a recent study, apparently all you have to do is pull out your iPhone.
The calls act as an instinctive warning to leave the hive, but the frequency confuses the bees, causing them to fly erratically. The study found that the bees’ buzzing noise increases ten times when a cell phone is ringing or making a call – aka when signals are being transmitted, but remained normal when not in use.
This animation was produced by Qais Sarhan for his graduation project on child labor at the University of Leeds. -via Nag on the Lake
From to Google Wave to the Microsoft KIN, we have seen lots of failed technology in recent years. However nothing seems as doomed to fail as “The Wearable Computer.” Check out this list of the 50 Worst Fails in Technology History Link
A man in Silver Spring, Maryland, is under arrest for multiple burglaries. Police caught him because he left his cell phone charging in one home as he robbed it:
Police say that Wilkins’s home lost power in the storm and that he needed a place – anyplace, it seems – to charge his phone. In his haste to flee, he left it charging.
Link via Geekologie | Photo (unrelated) by Flickr user Debs used under Creative Commons license
Why? Do you really need a reason? Well, in this case, it may a useful activity. There’s a new chip available that can be used by mobile devices to diagnose sexually transmitted diseases:
People who suspect they have been infected will be able to put urine or saliva on to a computer chip about the size of a USB chip, plug it into their phone or computer and receive a diagnosis within minutes, telling them which, if any, sexually transmitted infection (STI) they have. Seven funders, including the Medical Research Council, have put £4m into developing the technology via a forum called the UK Clinical Research Collaboration.
Link via Gizmodo | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user Jacky Cheong used under Creative Commons license
Ian Page is conditioning himself to salivate whenever his cell phone buzzes:
For the last 8 years, whenever my cell phone received a call or text it would vibrate in my left pocket. ‘Bondage Happens’ is a device I wear on my head that is connected to my cell phone. Whenever I receive a call or text the phone will vibrate and the device will inject a little bit of lemon juice into my mouth, thereby conditioning me to salivate when I get a phone call. I will wear the device for 2 weeks, starting Friday October 22nd.
Link via Make | Page’s Website | Screenshot: Make
A man in Jiangsu Province, China, got stuck in a toilet when he dropped his phone inside and tried to get it back:
When rescue workers arrived on the scene in Jiangsu province in eastern China, they found the man crouched over the toilet in a bathroom stall, his entire arm submerged up to the shoulder in the drain.
Workers broke the porcelain bowl with crowbars and hammered the pipes, taking care not to injure the man, CCTV reported.
After 10 minutes of work, the man was able to slowly remove his cut and bruised arm from the bowl and retrieve his waterlogged phone.
Link via Geekologie (where there’s a video)
Way back in 2007, we posted an item about how cell phones might be responsible for Colony Collapse Disorder, which is affecting the world honeybee population. Now, scientists in India have published results of an experiment that corroborates the theory.
In a study at Panjab University in Chandigarh, northern India, researchers fitted cell phones to a hive and powered them up for two fifteen-minute periods each day.
After three months, they found the bees stopped producing honey, egg production by the queen bee halved, and the size of the hive dramatically reduced.
It’s not just the honey that will be lost if populations plummet further. Bees are estimated to pollinate 90 commercial crops worldwide. Their economic value in the UK is estimated to be $290 million per year and around $12 billion in the U.S.
The Mobile Operators Association in England, which represents British cell companies, disagrees with the results. Link
The Telegraph has more reactions to this report. Link
Researchers in Germany are trying to develop a cell phone that can read lips by measuring the electrical activity used in the muscles of the mouth while speaking, which is then converted into a computer-simulated voice:
The user can speak into the phone soundlessly, but is still understood by the conversation partner on the other end of the line. As a result, it is possible to communicate in silent environments, at the cinema or theater, without disturbing others. Another field of use is the transmission of confidential information.
For the transmission of passwords and PINs, for example, users can change seamlessly to soundless language and, hence, transmit confidential information in a tap-proof manner.
Link via Popular Science | Photo: US National Gallery of Art
Researchers at Western Washington University wanted to test how alert cell phone users were of their surroundings compared to the general population. So they dressed a student as a clown and had him ride his unicycle around campus:
The observers asked walkers if they had noticed anything unusual, and for those who didn’t, they asked specifically if they had seen the unicycling clown. Even when directly asked, the cell-phone users were less than half as likely to notice the clown as those listening to music players or single individuals without any electronics. People who walked in pairs were the most likely to see the clown.
“So it’s not the conversation that’s the problem; it’s not an electronic device that’s the problem,” Hyman told LiveScience. “It’s something about a cell phone conversation is where the problem is.”
He speculates, as do other researchers, that when talking to someone in person you both can modify your conversation based on the environment, so if a clown, say, pops up you can both look up. “That’s not the case with the cell-phone conversations,” Hyman said.
Link via Gizmodo | Image: Ira Hyman
