Crime-fearing female pedestrians in Tokyo can soon protect themselves with fashion designer Aya Tsukioka's skirt that opens into a realistic-looking (except made of fabric), full-size vending machine that she hopes thugs will pass right by. It's one of several fanciful crime-avoiding creations of the genre that Japanese inventors are noted for, according to an October New York Times dispatch. Another, the "manhole bag," resembles a sewer covering when laid on the ground but can hold a person's valuables, again provided that the thug passes it up. Yet another is women's wraparound sunglasses that are extra-dark so that even shy, eye-contact avoiding females can stare unobserved at potential perverts in trains to guard against the ubiquitous groping. [New York Times, 10-20-07]
As several sightings were made around Washington, D.C., of dragonfly-looking bugs hovering in the air at political events, government agencies were denying that they had released any tiny surveillance robots, according to an October Washington Post investigation. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?'" asked a college student at an antiwar rally in Washington. "They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But . . . those are not insects." Several agencies and private entities admitted to the Post that they were trying to develop such devices, but no one took credit for having them in the air yet. [Washington Post, 10-9-07] | NOTW: 11-04-07
~A new class of UFOs have been launched?
A new tool for Japanese street muggers to exploit?
Posted by Stubbornson at November 4, 2007 07:32 PM