FROM Walkman to Talkman. Not content with changing the world's music-listening habits, Apple has come up with another innovation: the talking iPod.
A new generation of machines will use sophisticated software to convert the names of bands, albums and individual tracks into recognisable speech.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - As tips go, Chicago limousine driver Abdul Faraj got a priceless one this week when one of his regular customers offered up a kidney, media reports said.
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Here's internet's worst kept secret. Microsoft is comin up vth something to compete vth Apple's ipod. Click here to read on..
eBay has banned its customers from using Google Checkout, according to its accepted payments policy. Click here to read on....
TARANTULA CANAPES
Rurka prepared two large black tarantulas for the cocktail party but he said at the annual dinner he serves hundreds of them, each costing $175. They have to be stored individually and kept alive until just before cooking to stay fresh.
"They kill each other if they're kept together," he said, adding that occasionally the hairs on the legs can cause an allergic reaction, just as some people are allergic to bees.
He neutralizes the stings of the scorpions with heat to avoid adverse reactions.
"When you look at a scorpion your salivary glands dry up. It's not like looking at a pizza," said Cal Dennison, winemaker for Redwood Creek, who was offering advice on wine pairings.
He recommended a pinot grigio or something similar "to get your salivary glands working."
Rurka said he tries to overcome people's aversion to creepy-crawlies by serving them with something appetizing -- for example a cactus jelly with the cricket, or cheese and sun-dried tomato with the scorpion. He admits he would not normally feast on such creatures by choice.
"This is for sustenance, this is not an every day meal," he said. "The chances are you're not going to be looking for this unless you're in dire straits, and if you're in dire straits, I would suggest you go out and survive."
But he said attitudes to food changed over time and between countries, and with environmental problems and a growing population, the food industry could eventually be looking for new sources of protein, such as maggots or worms."I would say in the future our protein source will be different," he said, comparing raising insects to farming battery chickens. "I would say we could raise insects faster, get a better source of protein, control the fat content and have a higher nutritional value."
"I think you're going to see bio-foods," he said. "It's getting over that hurdle; it's hard to put that worm in your mouth."
For the record, a worm pretzel, or worm-zel, is a little chewy but doesn't taste too bad smothered with mustard.
Source: ReutersNEW YORK (Reuters) - A discerning guest at a Manhattan cocktail party removed a scorpion from its bed of cheese on an endive leaf and popped it in his mouth, determined to savour the taste unadulterated.
"Nutty, sweet," was the verdict of Gourmet magazine food editor Ian Knauer at the recent soiree.
"That's an antenna," he added, pointing to a morsel of cricket left poking through lips of his companion at the Explorers Club in New York, which likes to entertain its well-traveled members with exotic culinary adventures.
Founded in 1904, the exclusive international club has some 3,000 members around the world including Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest, astronaut John Glenn and paleontologist Richard Leakey.
On the menu at a reception for some lesser mortals in June were worms, crickets, scorpions, ants and pigeon pate.
"We're so fast to make fun or make comments about the way someone talks or the way someone walks, and food is like the last bastion," said Gene Rurka, the Explorers Club's exotic foods expert. "But someone today is living off this."
"I guarantee you people in Africa who haven't had rain for seven years would love to see an insect," he said.
Rurka, a biologist who has studied coral reefs in the Virgin Islands, devotes much thought to devising dishes for the Explorers Club's annual dinner in March where guests feast on tarantulas, maggots and exotic parts of various livestock such as eyeballs, testicles and penises.TEXAS ANTS AND MAGGOTS
Large ants from Texas are served with blackcurrants in a sweet mini-tart, while he likes to serve the maggots stuffed in mushrooms. "They're delicious," Rurka said. "I was going to say like a tasty rice grain, but soft. It's not chewy like that."
He has experimented with worms and decided the best option is to disguise them as a pretzel, tying them in a knot like the salty dough snack, and to serve them with mustard. First they have to be fed on oatmeal for 10 days to cleanse the system, and he does not recommend taking worms from just anywhere.
"You don't want them raised in a dump site, you don't want them raised in manure," he said.
Earlier Richard Wiese, president emeritus of the Explorers Club, led several dozen people through Central Park for a foraging hike to find edible plants in the heart of New York.
Among the findings were wood sorrel -- a heart shaped leaf that tastes a little like sour apples -- dandelions, violet leaves and burdock, as well as pods from a Kentucky coffee tree from which he had brewed a batch of coffee for the party.
"It's naturally decaffeinated," Wiese said. "It's kind of fun to go into Central Park and make your own coffee."
Rurka sources the more exotic ingredients such as spiders and scorpions from farms in Texas and Nevada where they are raised as pets or to feed animals.
At $30 each, the scorpions make a costly canape.KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - Hundreds of people are thronging a hospital in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata to see a patient holding a piece of his own skull that fell off.
Doctors say a large, dead section of 25-year-old electrician Sambhu Roy's skull came away Sunday after severe burns starved it of blood.
"When he came to us late last year, his scalp was completely burned and within months it came off exposing the skull," Ratan Lal Bandyopadhyay, the surgeon who treated Roy told Reuters Wednesday.
"Later, we noticed that the part of his skull was loosening due to lack of blood supply to the affected area, which can happen in such extensive burn cases."
The piece came off Sunday and hundreds of people and dozens of doctors now crowd around his bed, where he lies holding the bone.
Bandyopadhyay said the skull's inner covering and the membrane which helps produce bone was miraculously unaffected, allowing fresh bone to grow.
"When the skull came off, I thought he will die, but we noticed a new covering on his head forming and that might have pushed the 'dead skull' out," he said.
While possible, such cases are extremely rare."Doctors say a new skull covering has replaced the old one, but I am not letting go of this one," he told Reuters.
He intends to keep his prized possession for life and not hand it over to the hospital when he leaves: "My skull has made me famous," he says.
Source: ReutersHere goes the transalation!!!
As the ad opens, Gordito is bored, chilling out in an old arm chair (next to an abandoned car) outside, as Jose bounces a soccer ball off the wall nearby.
Gordito: Jose? Jugamos?/ Jose? Shall we play?
Jose: Si/ Yes.
The scene cuts to the courtyard where Jose and Gordito do their version of "rock, paper, scissors" to see who gets first pick of the players.
Gordito: Pares -- uno, dos y tres!/ Stop -- one, two, three! (They each throw a hand in, Jose loses.)
Jose: Ach!/ Ach! (the international language of frustration). Gordito gets first pick; the players arrive, running in from various angles of the courtyard, some in their native team gear, some more casual.
G: Cisse!/ Djubril Cisse, of France, who is injured for the Cup (broken leg).
J: Kaka!/ Kaka, of Brazil (remember, lots of them go by one name).
G: Zidane!/ Zinedine Zizane (Zizou), of France.
J: Beckham!/ David Beckham, of England.
G: Defoe!/ Jermaine Defoe, who plays for Tottenham, but is not playing for England in the Cup.
J: Kahn! Oliver Kahn, German goal-keeper, who won the "Golden Ball" (ringing Austin Powers?) at the 2002 World Cup.
G: Messi!/ Lionel Messi, of Argentina.
J: Mm, Beckenbauer!
G: . . . [realizing what Jose had just said] Beckenbauer!? ha ha ha ha ha ha ha/ The joke that they're sharing is that Jose has selected the player Franz Beckenbauer -- which sounds like "bake-un-bow-yea" in their idiom -- who was a German star (and former national team manager) from the late sixties and seventies (and an Adidas icon to boot).
Just when they're laughing, however, Beckenbauer turns up, in the era-appropriate kit (and his old number, 5). Oliver Kahn, the current -- and great -- German goalie (in the middle of the photo to the right), is especially dumb-struck, and Beckenbauer approaches him first to shake his hand. Neat moment.
But having cottoned on to the kids' m.o., Zidane whispers in Gordito's ear the name of a French football icon from the late seventies and eighties, Michel Platini -- G: Platini! -- who duly arrives to hug his no. 10 heir, Zidane (i.e., Germans don't hug. . .).
The players are stretching, smiling, and getting to know each other while they warm up, but Jose and Gordito are all business.
G: Oye, Defoe!/ Listen up, Defoe! Gordito throws Defoe the goalie gear, surprising -- and amusing -- because Defoe is a forward; but we've established that these are the kids' teams, as Jose then makes explicit.
J: [the coin toss; Cisse stoops to pick it up; Jose swipes it from his hands] Soy capitan!/ I'm the captain!
G: [calling out to his players behind him] Oye, cuatro cuatro dos!/ Four four two! The standard soccer line up of four defenders, four midfielders, then two forwards, or strikers.
J: [to his team, very seriously] Cuidado Cisse, porque el corre muy rapido . . .vale? vale. / Watch out for Cisse, because he runs very fast . . . All right? All right. (Cisse nods and wags his finger in agreement).
G: [pointing to two players in his backfield] Lampard, Robben, venga, ramos!/ Lampard, Robben, come on, to the wings! (or sides, of the pitch, with a gesture that tells them to switch -- which they do). And that's Frank Lampard of England, and Arjen Robben, of the Netherlands.
The match begins when Jose shoves German player Michael Ballack to the side and says, pita!/ the whistle (has blown), and takes the first touch. I'm not going to call every touch of the match itself (unless pressed).
G:Vengamos! Venga, corre!/ Let's go! Come on, run!
Jose tackles -- okay, trips -- the rapidly advancing Robben, who considers it a foul. Jose shrugs off his protest with a clipped "sorry!" to continue play. . .
J: Aqui, Beckham!/ Here, Beckham! (who produces his trademark bending cross).
Kaka ends up with the ball, advances, shoots, and Defoe -- remember, a forward -- manages to deflect it, with a laugh. Jose, disappointed in Kaka, orders, Tu, al banquillo!/ You, to the bench! -- in which the joke is who benches Kaka?!-- but then he shouts, Duff, ven! / Duff, come! Damien Duff, of Ireland, comes in off the bench. Play continues.
G: Oye, Zidane!/ Hey, Zidane! (whom he passes the ball). Zidane to Cisse. As Cisse heads up the wing, Capitan Gordito yells something I can't make out (he's running, and huffing and puffing); whatever it is, he wants him to cross the ball in . . .
Lampard collects the cross and shoots; the goalie, Kahn, grabs it. G: Gol! Kahn: "Nooooo!" Lampard, and Gordito's team, consider it a goal. Jose and Kahn argue (in their respective languages) over the goal line when . . .
Jose's mother calls from the balcony: Jose!
J: Que?!/ What?
Jose's mom: A casa!!/ Come home! He shakes his head and throws up his arm in disappointment, and heads for home, as the camera pulls back to reveal noone on the "pitch," save for Jose and Gordito, reluctantly exiting their fantasy. . .
Take a look at the pay package, u surely wud wanna b an MP someday!!
Salary & Govt. Concessions for a Member of Parliament (MP)
Monthly Salary : 12,000
Expense for Constitution per month : 10,000
Office expenditure per month : 14,000
Traveling concession (Rs. 8 per km) : 48,000 ( eg.For a visit from kerala to Delhi & return: 6000 km)
Daily DA TA during parliament meets : 500
Charge for 1 class (A/C) in train : Free (For any number of times) (All over India)
Charge for Business Class in flights : Free for 40 trips / year (With wife or P.A.)
Rent for MP hostel at Delhi : Free
Electricity costs at home : Free up to 50,000 units
Local phone call charge : Free up to 1,70,000 calls.
TOTAL expense for a MP per year : 32,00,000
no wonder these guys r filthy rich!!!
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