DRONE WAITERS IN SINGAPORE DUE TO SHORTAGE OF SERVERS
Singapore has a shortage of waiters for its restaurants, so one company is proposing using drones to fill in for servers. Infinium Robotics says its drones can operate without a controller, using a computer program, and sensors around the restaurant can help the drones navigate. The drones can carry over 4 lbs of food and drink, which is “two pints of beer, a pizza, and two glasses of wine”.
Timbre, a live music bar and restaurant chain in Singapore, is already getting started with their drone waiter programme, and Managing Director Edward Chia believes it will help get food out faster and give human waiters more time to focus on customer service. The same restaurant company was the first in its area to start using iPad menus.
The only problem with the drones so far is that waiters still have to unload them once the food arrives to its table, and the drones can’t do things like clearing a table or washing a dish.
(UPI)
NEWBORN ‘PREGNANT’ WITH TWINS: STUDY
Doctors in Hong Kong report in a newly released study that said they removed two fetuses from the abdomen of a three-week-old girl who was found to have been born “pregnant”. Dr Yu Kai-man, a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, said tests were performed on the newborn when a pair of tumors were detected in her abdomen and doctors determined the growths were actually twin fetuses weighing 14.2 grams and 9.3 grams after 8 to 10 weeks of gestation.
Yu and colleagues wrote in a study published in the February issue of the Hong Kong Medical Journal the fetuses each had an umbilical cord connected to a single placenta-like mass in the girl’s abdomen. The discovery was made in November 2010 and fetuses were removed from the infant’s abdomen. “It was almost impossible to detect during the prenatal checkup, as the embryo inside the baby was too small,” Yu said. “Since it is impossible for the little girl to have conceived the pregnancy on her own, the fertilisation of the twin fetuses, of course, belongs to her parents, which has gone to the wrong place.”
Yu said the condition is known as “fetus-in-fetu” and occurs about once in every 500,000 births, with fewer than 200 cases reported in literature. The doctors said the condition is classified by the WHO as a mature teratoma, a type of cancer, but the cause is unknown. “The widespread use of antenatal ultrasound in early gestation may provide more concrete evidence ... and shed light on this intriguing condition,” the doctors wrote in the study.
(UPI)
PlANE lOST 53 YEARS AGO FOUND
After a gruelling journey up into the rarefied air of the Andes mountains, an expedition team announced it has discovered the fuselage of a passenger plane that went missing over a half century ago.
The lAN Chile Douglas DC-3 twin-propeller aircraft was reported missing on April 3, 1961, near the city of linares, some 300 km south of the Chilean capital of Santiago. Eight players and the coach of the top-flight Green Cross soccer club as well as three referees were among the 24 passengers travelling aboard the plane. The airline, now part of latam Airlines Group, the region’s largest carrier, was state-owned at the time of the accident.
Rescuers found the tail end of the aircraft and some human remains a week after the crash, an official who asked not to be named told Reuters, but the recovery effort was abandoned near the snow-capped peaks due to its dangerous and remote location. The rediscovery of the plane is shedding new light on the tragedy, and rekindling the hopes of a long-awaited farewell for some of the passengers’ surviving family members.
To get to the crash site at 3,000 m above sea level, the nine-member mountaineering team travelled two days by horseback, traversing streams and ravines, and then spent another two days climbing deep into the mountains. It took another two days to get back down.
(Reuters)
DOll CAYlA HACKED TO SPEW FIlTHY THINGS
A talking doll designed to be a kid’s best friend may actually be a parent’s worst nightmare. My Friend Cayla is an Internet-connected doll introduced in November that is supposed to be able to communicate with children via speech recognition software and Google Translate technology. British toymaker Vivid Toys promises that Cayla is equipped with software to block hundreds of words inappropriate for children. However, security researcher Ken Munro says it’s fairly easy to hack into the doll and program her to say words from the dreaded naughty list, according to the Mirror.
The Cayla website insists that “Cayla will simply not respond or answer any question with this type of input”. “For example if you don’t want Cayla to talk about oranges simply add the word to the app. Then, if asked about oranges, Cayla will say that she doesn’t want to talk about it,” according to the website.
Nevertheless, Munro says it’s fairly easy for anyone with the technical know-how to hack into the doll and program her to say words from the dreaded naughty list. The Mirror even had Munro make Cayla quote Hannibal lecter and lines from 50 Shades Of Grey!
(The Huffington Post)