Metro News - Newspaper Online - formerly Toorak Metro News Victoria au newspaper Melbourne south eastern Bayside Melbourne

A recent US survey has shown that one in eight men don’t bother getting dressed at all, just one third wash and shave, and one in five take an afternoon nap! From the boss’ perspective, women don’t fair much better. One in 14 are naked at their computer, and only half take a shower.

Forty per cent of people use the time to do regular housework but, interestingly, 75 per cent believe working from home improves their productivity. This begs the question: what are they wearing and doing at work?

Boredom Detector - Just when we thought we had a gadget for everything, this was created. The device which consists of a wearable camera and software that measures facial expressions and movements, can let you know whether you have lost touch with a listener.

Studies show it has 64 per cent accuracy in detecting boredom in the listener. Some of us probably know friends and colleagues we would like to buy this for!
Originally, its purpose was noble: it was designed to help autistic people know who they were communicating with.

The New Sexual Revolution -In an extensive study of young people in Canada, 87 per cent of respondents reported having sex over Instant Messenger, Webcam or telephone.
Of the 2,684 students from more than 150 university and college campuses across Canada who took part in the survey, 51 per cent were female and 49 per cent were male.
Of those surveyed, 53 per cent of students enjoyed sex over Instant Messenger, while 44 per cent did the deed using a webcam and over the phone.

As youngsters are more likely to use technology, it’s not unusual to find that these devices are being used more and more, however, the level of usage did surprise researchers.

Internet Tax - You’d think that if a government could find a way to tax our breathing it would! It now seems at least 19 states in the US want to tax purchases made over the internet by individuals and organisations.

The tax return form has a line where you have to declare how many purchases you made over the Net and then you will have a specified tax rate applied to it.

Of course individuals are free to put $0 in this field, but if you ever got audited and were found to be lying the penalties could be severe.

Let’s hope that this is one US innovation that we don’t adopt!

Charity Websites - Most of us probably contribute to the good-hearted volunteers who come to our doors, or the money tins located in various places. But did you know it is now even easier to contribute to these many worthy causes?

Canteen (www.canteen.org.au) and the Starlight Foundation (www.starlight.org.au), both whom try to brighten the lives of seriously ill children, many of whom barely make it to their teens, as well as help their families, have a secure online donation facility.

You can use your credit card to make a donation, and through very little effort on your part you can make an enormous difference to someone else.

Chris Jacob is a director of Jive eXchange (www.ctsbayside.com.au)