Author: Serkadis

Sometimes there simply are no words: A British man is resting in a UK hospital after he got his penis stuck in a metal pipe and had to have it freed by an industrial metal grinder.

According to The Metro, the 40-year-old unidentified man showed up at Southampton General Hospital in the UK where doctors were unable to remove the pipe. The Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service had to be called in to safely cut the pipe off using a grinder in what a spokesman said was a “delicate operation.”

The penis in queston was left bruised and swollen, but is expected to heal.

This is a unique new table side alarm clock that also doubles an iPod dock. Turn the speaker anyway you choose and the clock will rotate over for you. Up close and personal the sound is amazing and when it launches soon it will be available in silver with other colors to follow. Check out iLuv for more info soon.

I love Casio slow motion cameras, even if their stills are generally not all that great. The new EX-FH100 is pocketsized, has a 10x zoom and a new 120frame per second mode that doesn’t have low light issues. Love it.

Older cameras would be impossible to use at 300FPS indoors, because the grain and exposure would become an issue. A quick test on the floor of CES showed that even zoomed in, the 120FPS mode, benefiting from the highly light sensitive backlit CMOS, did really well. And truthfully, 120FPS is better for sports, etc than 300FPS, in my opinion. The 120FPS mode also has another benefit — 640 x 480 pixel res, which is more usable than the old 300FPS mode’s 512 x 384 res. It has modes up to 1000FPS, though.

I’m getting one of these, without a doubt.

A Chicago man was sentenced today to 55 years in federal prison for enticing two minor boys to engage in sexual activity after having committed previous sex crimes against minors and while registered as a sex offender, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

The defendant, Matthew Calek, 28, of Chicago, received a mandatory 10-year sentence as part of the 55-year total prison term because he was a registered sex offender when he committed the new crimes.

The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen in Federal Court in Chicago. Calek faced a maximum sentence of life in prison and the advisory United States Sentencing Guidelines called for a sentencing range between 30 years and life imprisonment.

“This sentence will incapacitate this defendant and guarantee that he will inflict no further harm upon young victims for the foreseeable future, and we hope that it helps deter the conduct of other sexual predators and spares other potential victims,” Mr. Fitzgerald said.

According to court documents, in the summer of 2006, Calek used a social networking site, MySpace.com, and online chats to lure a 14-year-old boy from his home in Pennsylvania to Chicago, where Calek raped the boy.

In the fall of 2006, Calek deceived a 17-year-old minor into engaging in repeated sex acts by posing as an MTV movie producer; then tried to extort the boy for more sex by threatening to distribute DVDs of the sex acts at the boy’s high school.

At the same time, Calek amassed a collection of images and videos of children being sexually abused. At the time he committed these crimes, Calek was on federal supervised release for a previous federal child-exploitation conviction, and was registered in the State of Illinois as a sex offender.

Calek was indicted in April 2008 for possessing child pornography and obscene material, in addition to the enticement counts, to which he pleaded guilty in April 209.

Judge Andersen sentenced Calek to a total of 660 months on the two enticement counts, including a mandatory consecutive 10-year prison term for committing the crime while being a registered sex offender. He also imposed lifetime supervised release and ordered restitution to one of the victims.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie B. Porter.

MEDIA CONTACT:

United States Attorney’s Office, 312-353-5300
Northern District of Illinois

Less than a week before its scheduled debut, Our Little Genius has beeb removed from the FOX schedule. Hosted by Kevin Pollak, Genius features academically accomplished kids ages 6-12 answering tough questions for the chance to win hundreds of thousands of dollars. The first eight episodes have been yanked by producer Mark Burnett, who says he recently discovered “an issue” with how some information was relayed to the show’s young contestants that has led to his request that the network not air those episodes.

“I believe my series must always be beyond reproach, so I have requested that Fox not air these episodes,” Burnett, best known as the creator of Survivor and The Apprentice, said in a statement Thursday.

Mark Burnett Prods. will pay to reshoot the episodes, and will also pay the winnings to the contestants who took part in the original eight episodes.

“Even though we were incredibly pleased with the quality of ‘Our Little Genius,’ we respect and appreciate his due diligence and the decision to pull these episodes,” Fox said in a statement. “We agree there can be no question about the integrity of our shows.”

Our Little Genius was set to premiere after Wednesday’s edition of American Idol. FOX will instead air a repeat of the 450th episode of The Simpsons.

Taser, not content just helping cops electrocute old people and the handicapped, has decided to focus some of its energy on stopping sexting and texting while driving. Not with electrocution, sadly.

The tech itself is pretty ho-hum: it lets parents monitor texts and control when they can use their phone. Why the hell they’re doing this when they normally make, you know, tasers, is beyond me. But hey, power to you, Taser.

Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was joined today by David Webb, Chief of the Hanover Park, Illinois Police Department (HPPD) and James R. Kruger, Chief of the Roselle, Illinois Police Department (RPD) in announcing the arrest of a suburban man for the Dec. 14, 2009 robbery of the Chase Bank branch, located at 1640 West Irving Park Road in the western suburb.

CAYETANO E. WILLIAMS, age 50, whose last known address was 25 West 019 Argyle in Roselle, was arrested late Sunday, without incident, by officers from the DuPage County Sheriff’s Department, who were assisting in the investigation of a convenience store robbery.

CAYETANO was charged in a criminal complaint filed earlier this week in U.S. District Court in Chicago with one count of Bank Robbery, which is a felony offense.

According to the complaint, CAYETANO entered the Chase Bank branch around noon, approached a teller, and handed her a note announcing a robbery.

This was followed by an oral demand for money and a threat of physical harm if his demands were not met.

CAYETANO claimed to be armed with a handgun, although no weapon was displayed and no injuries were reported during the robbery.

After receiving over $25,000.00 in bank funds, CAYETANO fled the bank on foot.

He was seen by witnesses entering a compact-sized automobile that was parked nearby, in which he fled the area. This vehicle was not further described and the robbery remained unsolved, despite investigative efforts by the FBI and HPPD.

On Dec. 30, 2009, the Roselle Bank and Trust, located at 1350 West Lake Street in Roselle, was robbed by an individual matching the description of the man who robbed the Hanover Park bank two weeks earlier. The RPD then joined the FBI and HPPD in the investigation.

On the evening of January 3, RPD officers responded to an armed robbery report at a convenience store. After obtaining a description of the robber, who was believed to have fled the scene on foot, officers from neighboring communities joined in the search.

An individual who matched the description of the robber, and who was later identified as CAYETANO, was stopped nearby and eventually arrested. He was charged in state court with armed robbery.

Subsequent investigation by the Chicago FBI and Detectives from the Hanover Park and Roselle Police Departments developed additional evidence linking CAYETANO to the robbery and the filing of the charges announced today.

Though not charged, CAYETANO is also a suspect in the robbery of the Roselle Bank and Trust, located at 1350 West Lake Street in Roselle.

CAYETANO appeared before Magistrate Judge Geraldine Soat Brown late yesterday, at which time he was formally charged. CAYETANO was ordered held without bond, pending his next court appearance, which is scheduled for tomorrow at 2:30 p.m.

Until then, CAYETANO will be housed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Chicago. If convicted of the charge filed against him, CAYETANO faces a possible sentence of up to twenty (20) years’ incarceration.

In announcing this arrest, Mr. Grant commended the officers of the Hanover Park and Roselle Police Departments for their efforts in helping to solve this robbery. Said Mr. Grant

“The dedication and cooperation exhibited by these officers led to the safe arrest of a potentially dangerous serial robber and the solution of multiple criminal acts. This coordination of efforts is essential to effective law enforcement in the 21st century.”

Chief Kruger added “On behalf of the Roselle Police Department, I would like to thank all of our neighboring agencies and the FBI for collaborating on a successful investigation. This collaborative effort culminated with the arrest of a possibly dangerous offender before he could strike again or cause injury to innocent victims.”

Additional information about this and other recent Chicago area bank robberies, including downloadable photographs, is available at the Bandit Tracker Web site, bandittrackerchicago.com.

The public is reminded that a complaint is not evidence of guilt and that all defendants in a criminal case are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Copies of the criminal complaint filed in this case are available from the Chicago FBI’s press office at (312) 829-1199.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Special Agent Ross Rice, 312-829-1199
FBI Chicago

Get ready for Mannequin: The Remake.

Mannequin starred Sex & The City’s Kim Cattrall as an Egyptian princess trapped in the body of showroom dummy who comes to life and falls in love with Andrew McCartney’s awkward department store window designer. Panned by critics when it was released in 1987, Mannequin went on to become a cult classic. How could it not? Meshach Taylor was just divine as the script’s token queen, Hollywood. Tinseltown insiders tell Moviehole.net that Gladden Entertainment is in the early stages of producing a Mannequin remake with the new version featuring a lonely man who falls for a “laser display hologram.”

WTF? What is the meaning of this? Have we learned nothing from the craptacular mess that was Mannequin 2? That feature came out in 1991 and was dubbed “one of the worst follow-ups ever made.”

The Tatz line of headphones and earbuds come in 3 different themes: Impressions, Scarz, and Broken Heartz. The memory foam earpads offer supreme comfort while the precision acoustic engineering will optimize your sound and provides great sound isolation as well. The earbuds offer chamber sound. Earphones with great sound and splashes of bright color are always welcomed. Available on iLuv.

Quick heads up that I will be moderating what promises to be a great panel on the future of GPS navigation, starting in a little under an hour here at the Las Vegas Convention Center—3pm, North Hall N260. We’ve got amazing people from TomTom, Garmin, Nokia, TeleNav and SiRF/CSR on the panel, and my guess is that Apple and Google will come up at least once each—every 3 minutes. Here are some more details: [CES]

Directions on Microsoft analysts have made a rather pleasant discovery for the paid version of Microsoft Office Web Apps (browser versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote): you’ll be able to access them from everywhere. Office Web Apps will come included with the purchase of Office 2010 Standard or Office 2010 Professional Plus. The details are in the 128-page Microsoft Product Use Rights (PUR) January 2010 document. Here’s the relevant part:

Office Web Apps. In addition to the rights above, you may install the Web App software on a network device. You may use the Web App software only as described below.

• Primary User. The single primary user of the licensed device may access and use the software remotely from any device.
• Non-primary Users. At any time, one user may access and use the software from the licensed device.

This means that if you have rights to use the paid version of Office Web Apps and you’re away from your main PC, you can still use Office Web Apps from any device hooked up to the Internet without having to purchase additional Office licenses. Additionally, you can let anyone use Office Web Apps on your main PC.

In July 2009, Microsoft released a Tech Preview of the Office Web Apps and confirmed that they would integrate with Microsoft Office 2003 and later, in addition to supporting the following browsers: Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.5 on Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as Safari 4 on Mac. Users started to wonder about mobile browsers though, and a month later, Microsoft gave them the green light, but it has yet to specify which ones would be supported specifically.

If you recall, there is also going to be a free, ad-supported consumer version of Office Web Apps available to anyone who uses Windows Live SkyDrive (all you need is a Windows Live ID). Earlier this week, Microsoft unveiled pricing for Office 2010, which is set to arrive, Office Web Apps and all, in June 2010.

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High tech companies and the academic world have a bit of a symbiotic relationship. Many companies follow academic research carefully, and use ideas and developments from university research. The academic community, in turn, often studies the behavior of networks and individuals using data obtained from the commercial world. Both are probably relieved that industry provides a place of employment for the grad students that academia produces. In any case, it looks like Facebook has decided to take the relationship one step further: it’s offering fellowships to students pursuing PhD-level research in computer science.

Although it’s possible for computer science grad students to make it through a degree program without external fellowships, obtaining one provides a degree of flexibility (and, often, better pay). Facebook’s version will come with a $30,000 stipend for nine months, and kick in $5,000 each for travel to meetings and hardware.

The only strings seem to be that the research focus needs to be directly applicable to Facebook. Part of that is obvious from the list of topics: cloud computing, data mining, search algorithms, etc. But the application instructions leave little doubt about the company’s interest in relevant work: applicants are asked for a research summary that “clearly identifies the area of focus and applicability to Facebook.” According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Facebook has only budgeted this for one year, but hasn’t ruled out continuing the program.

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