ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Nine women tricked into thinking they were reality TV show contestants and lured into an Istanbul villa were rescued by Turkish military police after two months confinement, a police spokesman said Thursday.
Cameras in the villa filmed the women 24-hours a day, providing a live stream of images for Internet users who had paid to access the footage, the spokesman said.
The women, all from Turkey, according to the Turkish press, had answered an advert seeking contestants for a "Big Brother"-style television show. They passed an audition and selection process before entering the house.
"The women's parents called the police after they didn't hear anything from them. The military police went to investigate and heard the women screaming from inside," the spokesman said, adding the raid took place Monday.
Police detained three men and prosecutors are investigating, he said.
According to Turkish media, the women had signed a contract agreeing they would have no contact with their families and would face a fine of 50,000 Turkish lira if they left early.
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Source: Reuters
Future World gadgets and gimmicks
BBC looks at some of the more unusual gadgets, software and displays at this year's IFA tech exhibition in Berlin.
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Pigeon transfers data faster than South Africa's Telkom
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – A South African information technology company on Wednesday proved it was faster for them to transmit data with a carrier pigeon than to send it using Telkom , the country's leading internet service provider.
Internet speed and connectivity in Africa's largest economy are poor because of a bandwidth shortage. It is also expensive.
Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80 km (50 miles) from Unlimited IT's offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card was strapped to his leg.
Including downloading, the transfer took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds -- the time it took for only four percent of the data to be transferred using a Telkom line.
SAPA said Unlimited IT performed the stunt after becoming frustrated with slow internet transmission times.
The company has 11 call-centers around the country and regularly sends data to its other branches.
Telkom could not immediately be reached for comment.
Internet speed is expected to improve once a new 17,000 km underwater fiber optic cable linking southern and East Africa to other networks becomes operational before South Africa hosts the soccer World Cup next year.
Local service providers are currently negotiating deals for more bandwidth.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090910/od_nm/us_safrica_pigeon
Internet speed and connectivity in Africa's largest economy are poor because of a bandwidth shortage. It is also expensive.
Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80 km (50 miles) from Unlimited IT's offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card was strapped to his leg.
Including downloading, the transfer took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds -- the time it took for only four percent of the data to be transferred using a Telkom line.
SAPA said Unlimited IT performed the stunt after becoming frustrated with slow internet transmission times.
The company has 11 call-centers around the country and regularly sends data to its other branches.
Telkom could not immediately be reached for comment.
Internet speed is expected to improve once a new 17,000 km underwater fiber optic cable linking southern and East Africa to other networks becomes operational before South Africa hosts the soccer World Cup next year.
Local service providers are currently negotiating deals for more bandwidth.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090910/od_nm/us_safrica_pigeon
Body Worlds plans cadaver show dedicated to sex
ZURICH (Reuters) – German anatomists plan a new show dedicated solely to dead bodies having sex as part of the Body Worlds exhibitions.
Gunther von Hagens and his wife Angelina Whalley show corpses prepared using a technique invented by von Hagens called "plastination," that removes water from specimens and preserves them with silicon rubber or epoxy resin.
"It's not my intention to show certain sexual poses. My goal is really to show the anatomy and the function," Body Worlds creative director Whalley told Reuters in an interview, adding the sex exhibition may open next year.
Body Worlds exhibitions, visited by 27 million people across the world, have been criticized for presenting entire corpses, stripped of skin to reveal the muscles and organs underneath, in lifelike and often theatrical positions.
Von Hagens has already triggered uproar with a new exhibit which shows just two copulating corpses.
German politicians called the current "Cycle of Life" show charting conception to old age "revolting" and "unacceptable" when it showed in Berlin earlier this year because it included copulating cadavers.
The way a plastinate is exhibited can vary from country to country to reflect local sensibilities. A vote of local employees decided that one of the copulating female cadavers should wear fewer clothes in Zurich than was the case in Berlin.
"Switzerland is the first country that already said from the outset that we could show whatever we wanted," said von Hagens.
"Zurich is ready ... but it's maybe not so easy in every other town," he said. "We have discussed whether it is proper to show homosexuality and in what way. This is a very delicate subject."
Von Hagens and Whalley said they both intended to donate their bodies for plastination, but would not leave instructions about how to display them, dismissing this as vanity.
"I find it a great opportunity to give something to others by donating my body, namely self-awareness," said Whalley.
Von Hagens said he and some other body donors even saw plastination as an alternative to burial or cremation, giving them more certainty about would happen to their bodies after death.
"Cremation for me is hell," he said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090911/od_nm/us_finearts_bodyworlds
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