Best of Web: Warne and Hurley in new love tryst...

Warne and Hurley together again?

(AGENCIES)

LOS ANGELES: Shane Warne and Liz Hurley spent a passionate rendezvous in Los Angeles last weekend, reports Australia's Herald Sun.

Images of the couple getting 'close' in a car in Santa Monica have emerged. , the high-profile pair rekindled their love in flying visits to Tinseltown from Melbourne and London.

"I've been here on business - some of it monkey," Hurley wrote on Twitter on Friday. "A great weekend. Best in a long, long time."

The daily reported that Warne was mysteriously absent from Twitter from Friday, January 14, coming back online on Tuesday when he arrived back in Australia. Warne flew to LA on the morning of Saturday, January 15.

On the ground for just a few days, Warne and Hurley made the most of their time together, seen out and about in a Range Rover.

"I was in LA last weekend," Warne tweeted last Friday. "Had a great time and lots of fun ... It's a fun city - but not like amazing Melbourne!"

The photos have apparently sparked an international bidding war, the daily said.

Britain's News of the World has paid more than $160,000 and will publish the images later today.

New Idea and Woman's Day fought for the Australian rights, with Woman's Day winning after paying what is believed to be a big sum.
 
Huge parking fines inspired parking watch app

(REUTERS)

SYDNEY: Massive parking fines inspired one Australian man to create an iPhone app that lets users warn each other when parking officers are spotted lurking near their cars.

"The idea was pretty much born out of frustration," said Joseph Darling of "ParkPatrol," the app developed by his Sydney-based firm to help users avoid tickets that cost what he said was at least $82 Australian ($81) a shot - and often more.

"I could show you a list of maybe 20 to 30 parking tickets that I had last year, in my town, just by being a normal driver. I must have spent thousands of dollars."
The final straw came when he was ticketed in his own neighborhood despite a parking permit that he pays hundreds of dollars for each year.

The app lets users "sign in" and report sightings of parking officers with a single push of a button. Cartoon faces wearing a police cap then appear plotted on a map of the area, along with a notice thanking them.

The app will also alert users if a parking officer is spotted in their area and how close. Notification options for 500 meters (1,640 ft), 200 meters and 100 meters are available.

The free app is available in English, German, Spanish, Portuguese and French. Roughly 80 percent of users are in Australia, but it is also used in England, Spain, France and Germany, Darling said.

"With an active community, it's pretty accurate. We reckon around 90 percent," he added.

Future versions, currently being finished, will include an alert function for when parking time has expired. The company is also finalizing an Android version.

Next on the drawing board? A similar app that allows women to report sightings of handsome men.
 
Smart phones foster dumb habits in pedestrians

(AP)

NEW YORK: It was a miserable morning in New York, rain falling heavily and a 30 mph wind that made holding an umbrella difficult. Yet a man walked briskly up Fifth Avenue, balancing his umbrella and dodging pedestrians as he texted from his smart phone.

As a sheer physical act, it was almost Olympian in the strength, dexterity and concentration required. It was also completely ridiculous.

It was RAINING. And cold. The man was, let's presume, minutes from some destination. At any moment, he could spear a fellow pedestrian with his umbrella because he was only marginally paying attention to where he was going. What message could possibly be so important that it couldn't wait?

While smart phones and other electronic devices changed popular culture by offering an ability to always stay connected, they have so swiftly turned into such a compelling need that a simple walk down the street is considered wasted time.
 
India's first milk ATMs in Pune

(AGENCIES)

PUNE: ATMs of a different kind may soon be available for those having erratic work schedules in the IT hub of Pune in the form of 'Any Time Milk' vending machines for a whole range of milk products, to be introduced for the first time in the Indian state of Maharashtra, reports Press trust of India (PTI).

Conceived by a milk co-operative which supplies over one lakh litres of cow milk in the region, the pilot project is expected to take off within four months after completion of a feasibility survey, being conducted by a team of dairy experts.

"We have surveyed the system at Anand operating such ATMs in Gujarat and once our experimental run is successful in Pune, we will be replicating these vending machines at different points in the city, making available a whole range of our milk products at the push of a button and insertion of currency for the first time in Maharashtra," Rambhau Tule, Chairman of the Sangh, was quoted by the PTI.

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