Popular Elsewhere
15:10 UK time, Wednesday, 6 July 2011
A look at the stories ranking highly on various news sites.
A popular New Scientist article brings up a chilling prospect for poker players: "". The glasses analyse "micro expressions" on our faces using a tiny camera and a headphone whispering into the ear the analysed data of the person they are looking at. So if you are trying to hide confusion with astonishment your game may be up. But don't fear if you are planning to go to a poker match soon - the main clients for expression recognition software are businesses running focus groups to get feedback on adverts and films.
We're currently in according to More Intelligent Life's most popular article. But it's not a good wave to be in as the review of the state of coffee drinking concluded that the norms is a "vat of milk flavoured with burnt espresso; and both the milk and the espresso are usually too hot, which makes the coffee bitter and the milk sulphurous". That may be, but where would we get our mid-morning entertainment if we were without mysterious coffee names - from skinny latte with wings to flat white, short black and the equally baffling microfoam.
Coming in at number three on the Daily Beast's most-read list is . With no picture on the front page to give us an idea we dutifully click on the story to find what could be so controversial about it, images of Lady Gaga's meat dress flying around in the mind. But it turns out the designer of her wedding dress is at the source of the contention - John Galiano - the designer who hit the headlines for his anti-Semitic remarks. "It demands dissection" says Robin Givhan. That's before she dissects it and decides, actually, aside from making a statement, Moss probably just wore the dress because she's been friends with the designer for 20 years.
It's almost obligatory to have a story of in Time's most-read list. Three of today's top ten feature the country. China is supposed to be the land of cheap labour, Time declares. But despite a population of 1.3 billion people, companies are reporting a 50% rise in wage costs over the last two years. So in comes Cambodia, Laos, India and Vietnam to pick up some of the cheapest labour manufacturing left by the Chinese. But globally, Time says this is good news because as the Chinese worker gets richer, they'll be buying more generally. "For them, and pretty much everyone else concerned, that's the rarest of commodities in a troubled global economy: good news."
