Man pulled over with entire office in his car!

This photo made available by the Saarland State Police in Germany earlier today, shows a Ford Station wagon that has been wired up like a portable office. The driver, a 35-year-old man was pulled over for doing 130 km/h (81 mph) in a 100 km/h (62 mph) zone while passing a truck Monday. Built on a wooden frame on his passenger seat they found a laptop on a docking station tilted for easy driver access, a printer, router, wireless internet stick, WLAN antenna, and an inverter to power it all. He also has a navigation system and a mobile phone mounted on the dashboard. Since there wasn’t evidence he used the office while moving, he got away with a euro120 ($153) speeding ticket and possible fine for having unsecured items in his car.

It is remarkable the lengths that some people will go to in order to carry on working while driving. It is important however to remember that the laws are toughening up in the UK. It is now not only illegal to talk on your mobile phone without a hands-free device, but it is also an offence to text while driving.

Why not invest in a Visor GoBluetooth hands-free car kit from Supertooth. 

It may not be a complete in-car office, but it is the next best thing!  The kit features voice control so you can pick up your calls without taking your eyes off the road and  the auto-connect feature recognises your paired handset whenever in range.  You can even pair 8 handsets simultaneously- great if you have more than one phone! This portable visor solution is fully transportable and features 15 hours talk time and 800 hours standby time. It is also fully transportable so can be used as a loud-speaker in your office or at home as well as in your car.

(AP Photo/Saarland State Police)

Exercise reduces your appetite

According to a recent article in the Daily Mail, exercise has been shown in studies to reduce your appetite.

Apparently, just half an hour of aerobic exercise every day can make us feel less hungry.

One study found that perceived fullness was higher among participants after 12 weeks of aerobic training. Another study showed that women appeared less hungry on mornings when they walked on a treadmill for 45 minutes compared with mornings they didn’t.

However, it is very easy to fall into the habit of ‘rewarding’ yourself with extra food after a workout, even when you don’t actually feel hungry.

It is important to stay in tune with your body and not overeat just because you feel you should.  Keep a diary of when you exercise, what you eat and when you get hungry. It might reveal some interesting habits that you weren’t aware of!

If you prefer a high-tech approach perhaps you should consider investing in a health tracker such as the Fitbit Ultra Wireless Tracker.

The Fitbit Ultra monitors your activity all day to provide you with real-time feedback on steps, distance, calories burned, and stairs climbed to encourage you to walk more and be more active. It wirelessly uploads your data to Fitbit.com so you can gain deeper insight into your daily or monthly fitness and sleep levels with free online graphs and charts. On Fitbit.com, you can earn fitness badges, connect with friends to share and compete on fitness goals, or join the Fitbit community for advice and encouragement. So you can get fit- one step at a time!

Mobile phone saves woman from drowning!

The BBC reported today that on Tuesday evening, a woman was rescued from drowning after she became stuck in mud in Morcambe Bay by guiding a hovercraft to her using a light on her mobile phone.

Luckily the woman was saved by Morecambe Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). "We probably only had a few minutes left before the tide would have covered her completely," said Harry Roberts, RNLI senior hovercraft commander. "She was very scared but fortunately was sensible enough to realise the light on her phone would help us find her," said Mr Roberts.

"She was stuck fast, initially knee deep in the mud but by the time we reached her she was up to her waist and the tide was coming in very quickly. As we managed to extract her from the mud, the water was up to her chest."

The woman was trapped in a deep gully and it took 20 minutes to get her out.

"We don't know how she had got into the mud or where she had come from, but we all hope she makes a full recovery," said Mr Roberts.

The woman was extremely lucky that she had charged her phone and had enough battery life left to use the light on her phone to guide her rescuers. But what if she hadn’t?

Games and apps on mobile phones often drain the battery, which is fine if you have access to a power point to charge it- but in an unexpected emergency, it is important to have a backup.

This Universal Emergency Barrel Charger simply connects to your phone to give you up to 2.5 hours of extra talk time from one AA battery. It is small and totally portable so you will never be stuck with a flat battery in an emergency- who knows, it could just save your life!

More than half of us take our mobile devices to bed!

StorageOptions reported today that a new study into the tech usage habits of people in Britain revealed a ‘worrying majority unable to go even a few minutes without a device to hand’

More than half (57%) of people surveyed admitted they regularly use their mobile devices in bed, 40% using them while sat on the toilet! As a result, 45% admitted that their mobile phones and tablet devices prevented them from ever truly switching off and relaxing in their spare time.

Checking emails, surfing the net or updating social network sites also emerged as another area of obsession, with almost half (49%) admitting to checking their tablets instead of properly listening to their partner, and 35% of people finding the amount of time their partner spends on their tablet device even more annoying than them not doing the housework!

The study also highlighted that one-in-five of us actually set a time limit for our partners to use their devices, while just under half (45%) of respondents admitted that they can’t go more than an hour without using or checking their technology.

Despite all of this, 40% truly believe that their tablet or mobile device has made them more efficient – whether that is in their personal lives or in a work capacity.

Paul Evison, Head of Brand commented: “We know that people are becoming more and more reliant on their mobile devices. Having information at your fingertips can make life so much easier and the thought of having that instant access removed can be a daunting prospect for many. However, we can all be much more efficient by actually setting aside certain times of the day to use your tablet, update your social networks and check your emails. Instead of constantly dipping in and out of our devices we just need to set aside specific times to use them each day to stop us becoming unsociable tech-mad hermits.”

As an interesting exercise- for one whole day- keep a record of your tech usage. You might be shocked by how much time you spend attached to your phone or tablet!

High blood pressure ages the brain

Medical News Today reported recently that research led by the University of California (UC) Davis found accelerated brain aging among young middle-aged people with high blood pressure, and even among those whose blood pressure would not be considered high enough to warrant clinical intervention. The researchers say their findings emphasize the need for "early and optimum control of blood pressure".

Reporting in The Lancet's 2 November online issue, senior author Charles DeCarli, professor of neurology and director of the Alzheimer's Disease Center at UC Davis, and colleagues, describe how they found evidence of structural damage in white matter and volume of gray matter in the brains of hypertensive and pre-hypertensive people in their 30s and 40s that suggests vascular brain injury "develops insidiously over the lifetime with discernible effects".

DeCarli says in a statement:

"The message here is really clear: people can influence their late-life brain health by knowing and treating their blood pressure at a young age, when you wouldn't necessarily be thinking about it."

With recent advances in mobile technology, it has never been easier to stay in control of your blood pressure. 

This Blood pressure monitor is compatible with your iphone, ipod or ipad. Based on the iOS operating system and Bluetooth technology, you can test, track and share your blood pressure results wirelessly. The monitor is integrated on the arm cuff and works with the Free App. It can even work out averages to see if the changes that you have made to your lifestyle or any medication that you are on is having a positive effect. This information can then be sent to family members or caregivers at the touch of a button. Completely portable and easy to use, it has never been easier to manage your own health- both for immediate results and to protect yourself for a healthy future.

Phone theft figures have gone up by 25% in the last 3 years!

According to a report in the Telegraph today, mobile phone theft has risen by a staggering 25% in the last three years with, on average, 264 phone robberies reported to the police every da

Research by LV= home insurance revealed that over half of mobile phone thieves are teenagers, with some of those caught as young as nine years old.

Over half of perpetrators arrested are aged 19 or under according to the Metropolitan Police, with close to 16,500 teens arrested in the past three years nationwide.

John O’Roarke, of LV= home insurance, said: “We have seen a real shift in theft claims over the past decade with thieves preferring to target small, easily portable items such as mobile phones and gadgets.

"The latest smartphones are worth hundreds of pounds on the black market and can be easily sold on, making them particularly attractive to opportunistic thieves."

With the increase of smartphones, people now use their phones to check their bank accounts and update personal information on social networking sites- information that can be very valuable to fraudsters. It is important to make sure that you log out of any applications that could give anyone access to your private personal information and keep your phone password protected at all times.

Pickpocketing is the most common form of mobile phone theft. One in six of those who have had a phone stolen say it was taken from their bag or pocket. Make it difficult for thieves to remove your phone from your person with the Mi-Zone 2-way proximity alarm.  The Mi-Zone works with your handset or tablet and can be attached to anything you consider valuable or worth protecting. You can choose from 3 security settings: Low, medium and high, depending on the range of the security zone you wish to create and as soon as your belongings move outside of the selected zone, a flashing alert and audio alarm will be activated on your screen. Just keep your Mi-Zone tag by your side or in your pocket, and it will alert you when your handset or tablet is moved away from you.  You can also use it to locate missing handset/tablet by pressing the button on the tag for 10 seconds and, as long as it is in range, the alert will activate on your phone or tablet allowing you to pinpoint its exact location.

Bad news for celeb friends as Caroline Flack loses phone!

It was reported recently that Caroline Flack, the Xtra Factor presenter lost her Blackberry over the weekend, sending a handful of her showbiz pals into a panic.

According to an unnamed source, Caroline has the numbers of Xtra factor co-host Olly Murs, Xfactor’s Dermot O’Leary and even the big boss himself, Simon Cowell, as well as the digits of her ex-boyfriend, 1 Direction’s Harry Stlyes, stored in her phone. Caroline is said to be particularly worried as none of her celebrity friends’ numbers were even saved under pseudonyms!

Luckily, she had a lock on her phone and has had her provider shut it down completely, but according to a source, she is unsure of what even happened to her phone and it could simply be ‘under the bed’ somewhere.

Even if we don’t all have famous names in our phonebooks, we have all experienced the panic that comes with losing our phone- all be it momentarily. But there is now a solution to that problem, with the Mi-Zone 2-way proximity alarm.  The Mi-Zone works with your handset or tablet and can be attached to anything you consider valuable or worth protecting. You can choose from 3 security settings: Low, medium and high, depending on the range of the security zone you wish to create and as soon as your belongings move outside of the selected zone, a flashing alert and audio alarm will be activated on your screen. Just keep your Mi-Zone tag by your side or in your pocket, and it will alert you when your handset or tablet is moved away from you.  You can also use it to locate missing handset/tablet by pressing the button on the tag for 10 seconds and, as long as it is in range, the alert will activate on your phone or tablet allowing you to pinpoint its exact location.