The European Community is now commissioning a series of initiatives to reduce the problem of excess noise in large cities. First off will be noise level maps for all cities with more than 250,000 people. ‘In the same way that X-rays reveal broken bones, completed maps will help show how the rumble of cars, planes and trains sickens cities and, experts fear, their inhabitants.’ I also believe that it is not just audible noise that causes problems, but also the…

The TAero 4000 – ‘It’s more than just a new vehicle. It’s a whole new category.’ ‘…The TAERO 4000 is currently in prototype design development for initial introduction as an experimental owner-operator assembly craft. At this time, the TAERO is scheduled to be available for delivery in early 2007. This is subject to change as well.’ “Ooh look ma, yet another vague concept of a flying car!” “Be quiet Johnny and eat your cereal.”

Got a bit of an ego? Want to indulge it? Then saunter over to your nearest toy store and purchase a copy of the Make Your Own Opoly game. That’s right, you can create a custom tailored Monopoly game with your own choice of streets, money and even box title using a PC and handy inkjet printer. What price Acacia Avenue now, eh? $29.95.

Rent-a-Coder. ‘How software gets done’. ‘Need a program created? Receive bids from our pool of 59,546 registered coders. Review work histories and resumes online, and then conduct business stress-free using our “Safe Project Escrow”‘.

The Roadstor is a combo digital photo viewer, CD burner and DVD and MP3 player all rolled into one. Not only that, but it incorporates a 6 in 1 flash memory card reader and features USB 2.0 high speed support. Now this is what I call a fully loaded device. Priced at around $220.00. Review here.

Hot on the heels of the Ferret’s earlier report on the rise of the Internet at the expense of TV (see below), comes news that the Web is now read more widely than magazines – at least in Europe. Take it as you will (remembering, of course, that it is a ‘new media’ research piece). ‘Using the Internet has overtaken reading magazines in terms of media consumption, suggests research from the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA).’

The ultimate boy’s toy? Well, the U2 Mirage simulator is clearly a huge cut above your average magnetic desk set, but will it match the living room decor? And how quickly can you say �39,500 + VAT without choking?

If you’re looking for that something special to say ‘I love you’, why not give them a Song Younique? �140.00 gets you a custom created song on CD with all the trimmings. ‘Song Younique will write, record, and produce a professional song for the lucky recipient and present it on CD in a special gift box.’

Now this is weird. In the UK Landis & Gyr is mostly known as a boring manufacturer of things like phone card and train ticket machines. But in Taiwan the company apparently struts a much funkier line. Witness the 6-in-1 MP3 player (nice name guys!). – mp3 Player – USB Flash Drive (128MB-regular) – Digital Recording – Language Learning – mp3 encoder – SD/MMC card reader ‘

This could become silly. Warchalking meets Bluejacking and spawns errant love child called Bluechalking. [via Ben] ‘Bluechalking is the invented-by-me-but-as-yet-non-existent-practice of marking a Bluetooth symbol on sidewalks/pavements and walls to indicate that someone with a Bluetooth-enabled phone is often in the area…’

I’m totally mystified as to why anyone would possibly want to set up not one, but two whole Web pages dedicated to one shoe scenes in movies and TV. But then what do I know? ‘This is the second list containing description and pics of movie and TV scenes in which women happen to loose [sic] their shoes. The movies I have seen myself, for which more detailed and more reliable description is available, are marked with (*).

The Xonix DV watch comes with an inbuilt language translation feature for all those tricky moments when you’re stuck on the Metro etc. English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch. Apparently it holds 8000 words and 100 daily use phrases for each language. It’s also water resistant to 10 ATM, so you can look up all sorts of ways to say ‘help, I’m drowning’ on your way down. Cool stuff!

I really really don’t like Adobe’s Acrobat Reader. Specifically I don’t like its bloated, sluggish load times when I’m trying to access PDF pages on the Web. Props then to Darrell Norton who has come up with a way to make Reader 6.0 load faster. I’ve tried it and it seems to work fine so far. You can also speed things up by disabling the splash screen (Edit – Preferences – Startup, and untick the Display Splash Screen box) ‘Here’s…

Antoni Tomsia has just been given $4.3 million to create artificial bones. Well actually The Berkeley Lab has received the grant, to develop new biomaterials which, when implanted in the body, will encourage the growth of natural tissue. ‘In the case of implants, stress-shielding inhibits the continuous growth of new cells that keep joints healthy and strong, which, in turn, causes implants to loosen over time and require corrective surgery — a fate that befell 59,000 hip and knee replacements…

American Express has introduced an electronic wallet to the US? When did that happen then?. ExpressPay is a keychain RFID tag which debits accounts at a swipe. Max spend $150.00 a day. ‘You just hold your ExpressPay at a reader that’s located by the checkout to pay for your purchases. Radio signals from the radar capture information on your key fob and authenticate the transactions just like on your credit card – except no signature is required.’