An enterprising Chinese man has come up with a solution for gadget-crazy people who desperately want Apple’s popular iPad tablet computer but cannot afford it – DIY.
In a video posted on Youku – the Chinese YouTube equivalent – Liu Xinying demonstrates how to assemble an iPad look-a-like using computer parts, a touch screen and a case with a keypad. At the end of the video dubbed “DIY IPAD 3”, the IT whizz shows off the finished version – an apparently functional tablet computer that looks like a thick iPad but runs on Windows, an operating system made by rival Microsoft.
“I did this for fun,” said Mr Liu, who works at a computer store.
“It cost me 2,000 yuan ($309) to make it, so I guess that’s how much it’s worth.”
The cheapest 16-gigabyte version of the iPad 2 sells for 3,688 yuan in China, while the most expensive 64-gigabyte model costs 5,288 yuan. (AFP)
Stolypin statue
Russia’s Vladimir Putin yesterday asked his ministers to donate a month’s salary toward a monument of Pyotr Stolypin, an early 1900s statesman known for his intolerance of revolutionary attitudes.
“Members of the Cabinet, and not only members of the Cabinet, will have to direct at least a month’s salary to the Stolypin monument,” the Prime Minister told a meeting devoted to preparations for the 150th anniversary of Mr Stolypin’s birth next year.
Mr Putin lavished praise on Mr Stolypin, who served as Prime Minister for five years and survived several assassination attempts before being murdered in 1911, six years before the Bolshevik Revolution brought Communists to power. Mr Stolypin was known for his conservative views and a tough stance against revolutionaries that stirred the strikes and mutinies across Russia in 1905. (AFP)
Peck terror
A man has been blinded in one eye after an injured bird he went to assist pecked his eyeball out of its socket.
Michael Buckland spent three days being treated by eye specialists after a gannet pierced his eyeball on a beach holiday in South Wales.
The 38-year-old, from Cardiff, has been told by specialists that the chances of him regaining sight in his right eye are “very slim”. (PA)
Double header
A two-headed snake has gone on display at a zoo in Ukraine.
The “Skazka” (Fairy tale) zoo in the city of Yalta on the Black Sea said that the albino California Kingsnake’s heads think, react and eat separately. Zoo workers have to put a barrier between the heads when feeding the snake lest one eats the other. (PA)
‘Missing’ couple
A British couple reported missing in Canada were enjoying their holiday unaware of a major search for them.
Newlyweds Ben and Caroline Davies, from near Leintwardine in Herefordshire, set off on a country camping trip from British Columbia and had not contacted relatives since June 22.
They were due to return to Vancouver on July 4, and were reported missing six days later but were found “safe and sound” and “unaware that they had been reported missing”, Canadian police said. (PA)
Giant size
A furniture manufacturer has created what could be the biggest bed in the world.
The three-metre long, 2.8-metre wide creation, built for a Russian customer, is almost three times the size of a normal bed.
Designer Jamie Cooper, from Ipswich-based Titchmash & Goodwin, said he was “extremely proud” of the Moscow-bound oak bed, adding: “I have seen a sketch of the room it’s destined for and it’s more like a barn than a bedroom.” (PA)
Motorway nest
Britain’s busiest motorway is proving a haven of tranquility for a family of kestrels.
The birds have set up home on a construction site where workers are widening a section of the M25 near Upminster in Essex.
Brett Erwin, a plant supervisor for the company supplying concrete for the widening work, built a nesting box for them on the side of a concrete silo and six chicks have hatched, with the construction team following their progress on a webcam. (PA)