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While cellphone credit-the transfer credit between phones with a simple text message-has partly replaced cash to in some parts of the African continent, a paper now predicts that more economic functions will soon come to be carried out through mobiles.The paper has been submitted to a workshop on the future of social networking organised by W3C, the body in charge of global web standards.

It says that the next step is to give cellular phone users the equivalent of social networking websites like Facebook.

Gloria Ruhrmund, a South Africa-based mobile social media consultant, envisages that combining social network-style services with existing mobile credit transfer systems may further take over from traditional banking systems.

According to her, such mobile social networks may provide new routes to pay salaries, provide health advice, mobilise voters, and to connect and educate isolated communities.

Some social mobile tools, such as instant messaging service NokNok, are already established in Africa, reports New Scientist magazine.

More than 770,000 homes and businesses were still without power Thursday morning after snow and ice storms on January 27-28 left more than 1.3 million customers in the dark from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania, local utilities reported. The storms hit Kentucky the hardest, leaving more than half a million customers without power in the Bluegrass State.

Officials at E.ON U.S., which owns Louisville Gas and Electric Co and Kentucky Utilities Co, said it could take up to two weeks to restore service to all 381,000 affected customers.

E.ON U.S., a subsidiary or German energy company E.ON AG, owns and operates about 8,000 megawatts of generating capacity and transmits and distributes electricity to more than 900,000 customers and natural gas to more than 325,000 customers in Kentucky.

High temperatures in Louisville, the biggest city in Kentucky, will remain below normal in the 30s F through Saturday, according to forecasts by AccuWeather.com.

After crashing across the Midwest, the storm system dropped a lot of snow in the Northeast before moving off the East Coast into the Atlantic Ocean late Wednesday.

Snow, however, does not disrupt power service like ice. Ice accumulates on trees and branches, snapping them onto power lines.

In Arkansas, another hard hit state, the electric cooperatives, which serve about 490,000 customers, said outages peaked at about 300,000. The co-ops spent Wednesday assessing damage and restoring power but there were still about 189,000 homes and businesses in the dark Wednesday afternoon.

Worried about catching an infection while on flight with a sick person? Well, Belgium researchers seem to have put an end to your agony.The team from Biorics, a spinout company from the University of Leuven in Belgium has come up with a novel way to identify passengers who may be infected with a pandemic virus - only from the sound of their coughing.

They revealed that installing microphones in areas like a departure lounge would help detect and diagnose different kinds of coughs, reports New Scientist.

The microphone output would be constantly processed to eradicate background hubbub to reveal the sound spikes of coughs, or “bioresponses”.

Later the sound classification algorithms would help identify whether the noise is a harmless throat clearing or a “productive” cough that may signal infection.

Moreover, the loudness of a cough in different microphones would also make it spot the location of the infected person.

Previous studies have revealed that it is possible to develop a software that can discriminate between different kinds of cough or to spot illness.

“Governments and national or private health agencies can use this information from several users to gain information about the spread of respiratory disease,” the patent claims.

Movie buffs can now get information as to which film is being shown at which cinema hall on a new website.Internet users can search form movies as well as where and how they can be watched on the findanyfilm.com.

The website also gives cinema listings, DVD sale and rental options, and suggests legal download sites.

More than 30,000 films-including action movies, thrillers, classics, and Bollywood hits-are said to be part of the catalogue.

The website not only searches the film, but also brings up all the formats it is available in.

It even provides information on proximity, price, and popularity.

Movie buffs can read a synopsis of the film, watch the trailer, and even click through to book tickets or buy or rent the DVD.

Just in case a film being looked for is unavailable in the UK, the user can sign up to receive an email alert when it finally reaches these shores.

The UK Film Council, which has set up findanyfilm.com, claims that it will vastly speed-up and simplify movie searches.

“This new site is going to transform how consumers find the films they want to watch - we will soon wonder how we ever coped without it,” Sky News quoted Peter Buckingham, the head of distribution and exhibition at the council, as saying.

“We have turned what was often an incredibly time-consuming, frustrating process into one that makes it much easier for film fans to see films in the UK,” he added.

The website, however, is not the first of its kind.

“It’s a great idea because people do use the web to research what they will see in the cinema or on dvd,” said Sky News entertainment correspondent Matt Smith.

“But they are a bit late to the party because there is already a similar site that everyone in the industry and film buffs use, called IMDB.com,” he added.

A laser-based system called LightLane, which can help keep cyclists safe from fast moving vehicles, is being proposed as one of the newest technologies that can improve that morning commute.The system clearly mark, in bright red lights, where car lanes end and bike lanes begin, helping keep cyclists safe even at night when reflective devices don’t quite cut it.

Second top new technology in the same field is for the benefit of commuters who have to choose between breakfast and catching the bus, reports Fox News.

Companies like TransitTracker keep tags on buses and trains so that people can track them online or on their cell phones.

The system follows a commuter’s ride’s actual location - not an estimated schedule - so that he/she knows exactly when it will arrive at his/her station or stop.

Third on the list is an ingenious iPhone application called iNap, which involves the phone’s in-built GPS device to track a sleeping commuter’s location, and set off an alarm to wake him up when he is near his destination.

Following is the Attention Assist technology, through which Mercedes-Benz is planning to manage fatigue, which it says is the cause of most accidents.

The technology reads telltale signals, such as the way one is steering and braking, monitoring one’s sleepiness and flashing an alert when the person seems too tired.

Wrapping up the top five was a program being developed by Enter Nissan, which will sense obstacles and incoming vehicles, instantly reacting to avert a crash.

It uses a laser to give it 360 degrees of protection, modelled on a bumblebee’s compound eyes that can see in most directions.

The technology has not been worked into an auto yet, and currently remains housed inside a duck-sized robot.

Sixth on the list was IntelliDrive, which is aimed at allowing vehicle-to-vehicle interaction, so that if a car brakes suddenly, it could transmit a signal to cars behind, allowing drivers or computers to brake in time.

It was followed by an Audi-sponsored technology called Travolution, which lets a car communicate with traffic systems, and determine when lights will turn green, allowing the driver to coast through intersections.

It even calculates the speed the driver should maintain to get to lights at the right time, something that can help ease up and achieve better fuel economy.

Eighth on the list was a technology that can allow to charge music players and other small electronics just by shaking them.

Another top idea would be to design high-tech parking spots that can alert people when they are empty via e-mails or text messages.

Wrapping up the top 10 was an idea to make self-parking cars. Ford is said to have embraced self-parking technology, and plans to equip two of its 2010 models with cameras and sensors that let their Lincolns do the work for you.

Top 10 newest gadgets and applications bent on improving that morning commute:

1. LightLane

2. TransitTracker

3. iNap

4. Attention Assist

5. Biomimetic Robot

6. IntelliDrive

7. Travolution

8. Shake It

9. Meter-Mail

10. Self-parking cars

Many parents would love to be able to give their teenagers a cell phone that couldn’t be used while driving. Now some inventors say they have come up with ways to make that possible, but they appear to be relying on wishful thinking.One product to hit the market, $10-a-month software by Dallas-based WQN Inc., can disable a cell phone while its owner is driving. It uses GPS technology, which can tell how fast a person is traveling. But it can’t know whether the person is driving — and therefore it can needlessly lock a phone. WQN, which sells cell phone and Internet security software under the name WebSafety, says it signed up about 50 customers for its first month of service.

Aegis Mobility, a Canadian software company, plans to release a similar Global Positioning System-based product this fall, known as DriveAssistT. Aegis is in talks with big U.S. wireless phone carriers, which would have to support the software and charge families a fee of probably $10 to $20 a month, said David Teater, the company’s vice president.

The DriveAssistT system will disable a phone at driving speeds and send a message to callers or texters saying the person they are trying to reach is too busy driving. But because that person could be a non-driving passenger, the approach is a blunt tool.

Other product concepts that don’t involve GPS systems have their own flaws. As a result, Parry Aftab, who advises families on technology and safety, suggests worried parents find another way to stop their kids from calling or texting while driving. Parents are better off taking away a child’s cell phone if it is used improperly, she said.

“More and more, we see any solution is, in large part, education and awareness, parents getting involved,” said Aftab, executive director of WiredSafety.org. Driving and cell phone use can be a bad combination, “but so is putting on makeup and eating a three-course meal,” Aftab said. “I wish technology providers would look hard at the problems before coming up with a knee-jerk solution.”

Concerns are mounting that driving while gabbing or text-messaging on a cell phone, even if it is not handheld, is unacceptably dangerous. The National Safety Council said this month that there should be a total ban on cell phone use while driving, citing the higher risk of accidents and deaths.

At least 18 states restrict cell phone use — talking or texting — for some or all drivers, according to the insurance industry-funded Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Yet even in those states, motorists and especially young drivers are hardly deterred.

One of the worst accidents occurred last year in New York, when five teens were killed when their 17-year-old driver, carrying on a text conversation, collided with a tractor-trailer rig.

B. Michael Adler, chief executive of WQN, said his 18-year-old son came to mind as he was developing the company’s software to disable a cell phone while driving.

“He’s texting messages with two hands and driving with his legs,” Adler said. “You flip him the keys to the family car, you might as well be flipping him a six-pack of beer.”

WQN’s surveillance service promises more than just disabling the phone in cars. It can monitor a person’s whereabouts, notifying parents by text messaging when their children step out of designated zones or return home. It also can turn off a cell phone at school, preventing cheating by text messaging during classroom tests, based on a reading of the school’s location.

The question parents would have to ask themselves is whether they’d want to prohibit their children’s activities this way. That kid you’re trying to control might not be driving, but rather sitting on a train or a city bus or in the passenger seat of a buddy’s car.

Michael Hensley has thought about this very dilemma. The 52-year-old manager for a defense contractor worries that his 23-year-old daughter is a “thumb Olympian” inclined to send text messages while driving.

But he doesn’t expect technology to provide an answer. Savvy kids “will always find a way to defeat” a technological product, Hensley said. “It’s human nature to defeat the system.” Instead, Hensley said, he’s tried to educate his daughter about the dangers of mixing phones with driving.

The inventors of the GPS-based software systems acknowledge their systems aren’t perfect for disabling cell phones and are hard at work on improvements. Meanwhile, a separate, hardware-based solution appears to have its own flaws.

A pair of inventors affiliated with the University of Utah have developed a prototype of a key fob device that communicates with a cell phone over Bluetooth wireless signals. The key fob wraps around an ignition key; when the key is flipped or slid open, the device disables the cell phone paired with it.

This turns out to be easy to beat. A kid could remove or run down the key fob’s batteries, or duplicate the key — without the fob. So in response to questions from The Associated Press and critics on the Internet, the Utah inventors, Wally Curry and Xuesong Zhou, have dropped their original concept for something different.

Zhou considered transforming the key fob into a device that prevents nothing. Instead, it would let a driver hit a “quit” button and talk or text at will, but with a consequence: parents get notified by text messaging, and a monthly “driving score” could go to an insurer, which might jack up the teenager’s premiums for bad driving.

Even that, Zhou acknowledged, wouldn’t solve the tampering problem. So in his latest brainstorming he produced an elaborate scheme: Parents should estimate how many hours a child drives each month and report that to a Web site. If the key fob system reported the teenager appears to be driving substantially less than the prescribed time, it might indicate he’s defeating the system, and the Web site could send a report to the parent.

For now, though, the key fob is going back to the drawing board.

A team of Japanese researchers says that it has designed an Iron Man-style robotic suit that can give even the most infirm farmer new-found strength.Project leader Shigeki Toyama, a robotics professor at The Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, describes the prototype robot suit as the latest technological advance designed to assist Japan’s rapidly ageing farmers.

“I have been working on this for about 10 years now because few young people want careers in agriculture now and older farmers need help to do their work,” the Telegraph quoted him as saying.

The suit, which is worn as an external skeleton, consists of motors at the key joints like the lower back, knees, elbows and shoulders.

These motors enable the joints to work in tandem with the wearer and provide additional strength.

“It is designed for a range of activities that farmers are required to do, such as carrying heavy bags of potatoes, pulling ‘daikon’ (Japanese radishes) from the ground, or pruning branches,” said Toyama.

A demonstration of the suit was given at the university’s farm recently, when it was through its paces by a student who needed only 15 kg of force to extract a daikon from the ground, about half what is usually required.

The robotic suit’s development attains significance as Japan’s agricultural sector is in crisis with young people migrating to major cities in search of jobs.

About 50 per cent of the country’s agricultural workers are aged over 60, and the amount of cultivated land is shrinking.

An increasing reliance on imported food is said to have become a cause of concern for the Government, and efforts are being made to persuade more and more people into taking up farming.

Toyama’s robotic suit presently weighs an unwieldy 25 kg, but the researcher is aiming to reduce that by half and have it on the market within two years.

If you are the victim of a car accident, then you should start thinking about the legal steps you will need to take. You are going to need money to repair your vehicle and heal any injuries from the wreck. If you want to protect your rights, then you need to have an Arizona personal injury attorney. They will be able to handle the legal aspects while you focus on healing.

You also need to hire one as quickly as you can. The insurance companies don’t usually wait. They are usually right on the case with paperwork that limits their liability. Don’t sign anything until you get a lawyer to look at the paperwork. It’s really that simple. There are other precautions though. You shouldn’t discuss the case with any representatives or agree to be recorded. These can be attempts to trap you and limit their liability too. Just be polite and refer them to your attorney. They’ll know what to do. With any luck, you should be able to get your case settled out of court for a fair amount. In a few cases, you will have to go to court though. In this event, you’ll be even happier that you already have a good attorney on your side.

If you want to get your just compensation, then you need legal aid. Don’t hesitate to hire one of the many Arizona personal injury attorneys who have experience you need.

Over the counter contraceptive pill will not reduce unwanted pregnancies, according to an expert.Sarah Jarvis from the Royal College of Physicians said that one of the main reasons behind the high rates of unintended teenage pregnancies in the UK is lack of daily compliance with taking oral contraceptives.

Previous studies have shown that nearly 50 per cent of all women taking the oral contraceptive pill miss one or more pills in each cycle, and nearly a quarter missed two or more.

These women are three times more likely to get pregnant unintentionally than those who take the pill consistently.

Jarvis said that the availability of emergency contraception without prescription has done little to change the rate of teenage pregnancies.

According to her, the solution lies in long acting reversible contraceptives such as the coil, or those, which can be placed under the skin or injected.

She added that they last between three months and three years, and because they are not dependent on patients taking them correctly, are much more reliable than oral contraceptives.

Australian researchers have developed a device that allows household fridges to run easily on solar or wind power.Such an invention would lead to a drastic reduction in reduce greenhouse gas emission and make renewable energy more useable as well.

The fridges are capable to switch themselves on and off regularly as they keep their temperature between 2 and 4 degrees Celsius.

A small box developed by the team led by engineer Sam West connects all the fridges in an area electronically.

They “talk” to each other, and to renewable energy suppliers and decide when is the best time to turn on the compressor and cool themselves down.

So when there is plenty of solar power available, the fridges switch themselves on. And when the clouds roll in, they switch themselves off.

Engineer Sam West, who helped develop the device at CSIRO’s research centre in Newcastle, said using the humble fridge to store renewable energy was exciting.

“A lot of people are surprised to hear that they can use (their fridge) for this kind of storage, usually they’re pretty interested,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted West, as saying.

However, one of the major obstacles to the widespread use of renewable energy is its reliability.

West suggests that finding ways to store renewable energy would help address the issue.

The “green fridge” was one way of doing it, in the form of thermal energy - or cold.

The organisation hopes to roll out a trial version of the system, and said it was possible that one day all fridges would come equipped with the device.