Brazilian pet shop chain Petz has combined face recognition technology and artificial intelligence to create a groundbreaking platform that allows dogs to buy their favorite products by analyzing their facial expressions. There’s nothing more disheartening for dog owners that buying a new toy for their pooches only to see them turn their nose up at it. Well, thanks to Pet-Commerce, an online pet-store created by Brazil’s Petz brand, you can avoid such disappointing experiences by allowing the dog to choose his favorite products. All you have to do is hold an internet connected camera to the dog’s face and allow the AI powering Pet-Commerce to analyze its facial expressions as you scroll through the different products listed on the site. Once it detects excitement, it automatically adds the product to your shopping cart and you can finalize the transaction when you’re done. Read More »

An 11-year-old boy from Xinxiang city, China’s Henan province, has been praised for taking on the mission of saving his father’s life by eating as much as he possibly can. Lu Zikuan’s father was diagnosed with leukemia seven years ago and has been treated with medication ever since. However, last August his health started deteriorating drastically and doctors informed him that his only option was a life-saving bone marrow transplant. After screening members of his family for possible matches, they found that the only viable donor was Zikuan, who was 10-years-old at the time. Despite his young age, the primary school student was eager to go under the knife to save his father’s life. But there was one big problem, he weighed only 30 kg, and doctors told the family that they wouldn’t operate on him unless he gained at least 15 kg more. So in March of this year he started stuffing his face with as much fatty food as possible. Read More »

A 27 -year-old woman who was caught raising a six-month-old endangered sun bear in her Kuala Lumpur condominium unit explained that it had found it on the side of the road and took it in thinking it was a dog. On June 6, residents of the Sentrio Suites Condominium in, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, were shocked to hear the roars of what sounded like a wild beast coming from the building’s upper floors. Then they spotted what looked to be a bear poking its head through the window of an apartment and screaming its heart out. At first, most of them thought it was just someone trying to prank them by putting on a bear suit and making animal noises, but then one of the tenants living below the suspicious scene took a video and confirmed that it was indeed a real bear. That’s when the authorities were contacted to remove the threat. Read More »

Bamboo was already one of the most versatile resources available to man, but villages in various parts of China have come up with yet another use for the giant grass – living casks for maturing liquor. Villagers and liquor producers in several Chinese provinces have come up with a way of using living bamboo trunks to produce alcoholic drinks that are proving very popular with tourists. By using high-pressure injection techniques, they fill up sections of living bamboo trunks with rice wine or sorghum and leave it to mature for several months, up to a year and a half, during which time the liquor is infused with flavone (the liquid naturally released by the trunk) and the sap of bamboo. This apparently gives the liquor a pure, pleasant aroma and detoxifying properties. It also lowers alcohol content, as the plant absorbs part of it. Read More »

It seems like only yesterday flip-phones were the hottest handhelds available, but nowadays they are practically antiques and companies are making news headlines for paying people to use them over smartphones. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first ever flip-phone, Utah based Internet and phone service provider Frontier Communications has announced it will pay someone $1,000 to ditch their modern smartphone and switch to a flip-phone for a week. The lucky winner will have to record how long it takes them to do simple tasks like texting and sending emails with the obsolete handheld, how much sleep they get, and whether their productivity increases during the one-week experiment.

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Tetsuya, an 84-year-old retired chemistry teacher with no real interest in fashion, managed to become somewhat of a style icon after letting his grandson dress him up for a photo shoot. It all started last month, when Naoya Kudo went home to Akita Prefecture to visit his grandfather, Tetsuya, during Japan’s Golden Week holiday. During their reunion, Naoya asked his grandfather if he’d be willing to model some fresh designer clothes for a couple of offbeat fashion photo shoots, and the 84-year-old accepted. It gave them a chance to spend some quality time together and have some pure unadulterated fun, but none of them imagined the results of their photo shoots would become a social media success story. Read More »

A Malaysian doctor recently confessed to battling methamphetamine addiction for the last nine years, after being introduced to the drug as a way to boost his energy level to cope with 48-hour hospital shifts. Dr Sasitharan Ayanai, a 39-year-old doctor at a government hospital in Johor Baru, Malaysia, got addicted to meth nine years ago, shortly after coming home from Russia, where he graduated medical school. Long-hour shifts, sometimes up to 48-hours-long, without proper rest and having to treat countless waves of patients quickly took a toll on the young doctor, and he found himself looking for a way to boost his energy level just to cope with the situation. He was introduced to metamphetamine, and because he was a doctor, he thought he could control himself and not become addicted, but he was wrong. Fast forward nine years, and Dr Sasitharan is still struggling to stay clean. Read More »

Smartphone addiction is getting so bad that restaurants are offering customers free food if they agree to part with their handhelds for the duration of their meal. Curry Pizza Company, a pizza place in Fresno, California, is offering customers a “Talk to Each Other Discount”, which requires customers to agree to have their smartphones locked up while they are in the restaurant and simply talk to each other during their meal. The discount is only applicable to groups of four people or more, all of whom must be carrying a working smartphone. If they qualify for the offer, diners will receive a free large pizza that they can enjoy on their next visit, or, if they’re in a giving mood, donate to the homeless in downtown Fresno. Read More »

A wealthy farmer from China’s Sichuan province has been arrested for allegedly stealing chickens and ducks from several villages in Linshui county in order to buy gas for his “thirsty” $290,000 BMW. Police in Linshui had been getting reports of chickens and ducks getting stolen from several villages in the county since April, but never expected the culprit to be one of the richest farmers in the area, a man who happens to live in a multi-story villa and drives a 2 million yuan luxury BMW. Apparently, it was the latter that pushed Qiang (pseudonym) to a life of petty crime, as after running into financial woes, he found it tough to afford gas for his gorgeous BMW. So he started stealing people’s domestic birds, breeding them on his farm, and selling them off for gas money. Read More »

Photos of a Venezuelan emigrant allegedly chained to his seat at a restaurant in Peru so that he wouldn’t walk out without paying have sparked controversy online. The shocking photos were originally posted on Twitter by a Venezuelan journalist named Luis Martinez, who writes for La Patilla. However, while the article posted on the news website is still accessible, the photos have been removed from the journalist’s Twitter feed. Allegedly, Martinez got the photos from a countryman who emigrated to Peru following the longstanding political and social turmoil in Venezuela. In one of his deleted tweets, the journalist claims that the man took the photos himself after being chained to his seat, but asked that his face be blurred out for fear of repercussions in Peru. Read More »

Maurice, a proud rooster from the French commune of Saint-Pierre d’Oléron, has become an overnight celebrity after triggering a controversial legal battle with his loud morning crowing. The story of the rooster who sang to loudly has become the topic of a fired-up debate in France. A local family has been sued because Maurice, one of their roosters, crows too loudly in the morning and disturbs some of the neighbors. The bird’s owners claim that they live in a rural environment, where crowing is a part of daily life, but because of an influx of tourists and seasonal residents looking for peace and quiet, the animal’s natural instincts have become a nuisance. They’ve tried keeping Maurice in the chicken coop until 8:30 in the morning, but that’s the best they can do, they said, because Maurice is a rooster, he has to crow. Still, their neighbors didn’t find that solution satisfactory so they filed a complaint at a regional court. Read More »

Police in the Netherlands are offering samples of a special MDMA-scented perfume to the public in the hopes that it will help people detect and report drug labs when they pass by them. Despite the best efforts of Dutch police to curb drug manufacturing and traffic, the Netherlands is still considered the MDMA production capital of the world. Having exhausted traditional ways of battling drug crime, they’ve now taken an unconventional approach, creating a special perfume called XTACY which has an aroma very similar to the sweet smell of MDMA, a recreational drug commonly known as ‘Ecstasy’. But they’re not selling it. Instead, they’re offering samples to the public, to get them familiarized with the smell of the drug, so that when they casually walk by a drug lab producing the illegal substance, they can notify authorities about it. Read More »

Hundreds of people in Coal Grove, Ohio, recently woke up to pink, Pepto Bismol-like water flowing through their faucets. While many were alarmed, authorities assured everyone that the water was safe to drink, but could stain laundry. On Monday, June 3rd, residents of Coal Grove, a small village in Ohio, were shocked to find that the water flowing through their faucets had turned vibrant pink. After receiving dozens of calls from alarmed citizens, local authorities issued a statement apologizing for the situation and explaining that the unusual water coloration was the result of a pump malfunction at the water treatment plant which resulted in too much Sodium Permanganate being released into the distribution tank. They also assured people that the water was safe to drink, as laboratory samples showed that the sodium permanganate levels were below the health risk guidelines of the EPA. Read More »

A mysterious Mormon millionaire has been making news headlines for his unusual approach to finding a new wife – posting large ads on roadside billboards in Utah asking women to audition for an exclusive group date. If you’ve been driving down Interstate 15 in Salt Lake City over the past month, you’ve probably seen several roadside billboards advertising a date with a mysterious member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They read “LDS Millionaire looking for his wife,” and invited potential candidates to sign up for an “exclusive VIP event” on June 7, via a custom website. The ads were pretty basic, and you would be excused if you thought they were a joke, but according to self-proclaimed “LDS matchmaker” Erin Schurtz, they are legit. Read More »

Deoco, a range of women’s beauty products that allegedly captures the coveted “young woman smell”, has become a huge hit in Japan, among both older women who want to smell younger and lonely men who crave the fragrance of a younger woman. The story of this intriguing line of cosmetics began last year, when Japanese company Rohto Pharmaceutical announced that it had successfully isolated two fragrant chemical compounds, called Lactone C10 and C11, which younger women’s bodies seemed to produce in much larger quantities than those of older women. In a study that involved 500 women of all ages, from teens to adults in their 50s, Rohto’s scientists detected a “sweet aroma” that was stronger in younger women’s worn clothes. Subsequent research revealed that the scent came from two lactones, the levels of which were highest among teens, but dropped significantly in women over 35. After making the discovery and isolating the two compounds, Rohto quickly started working on Deoco, a line of body soaps and deodorants rich in Lactone C10 and C11. Read More »