Schoolboy designed iPhone app video game

Schoolboy: Robert Nay's puzzle game Bubble Ball became the top free app in the Apple iPhone store this week.

 A simple but hugely addictive video game is taking the world by storm.

Bubble Ball is a physics-based puzzle game that has been downloaded as an app by more than two million iPhone users. It became the top free application on the Apple store. But it hasn't been designed by a team of highly paid experts, it is the work of a 14-year-old boy.

Robert Nav's game even outsold the adventure game Angry Birds. Since its release on December 29, Bubble Ball's success has become astounding. Adding to Robert's glory is the David versus Goliath nature of his victory. While he designed Bubble Ball in his bedroom in Spanish Fork, Utah, Angry Birds was developed by 17 professionals in Finland.

The rules of Bubble Ball are simple - players must move a small blue ball from one side of the screen to the other by steering it around various obstacles. Robert was encouraged to try his hand at programming by a friend who noticed how much he liked his iPod touch.

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• Schoolboy, 12, becomes youngest Briton to develop an iPhone app (dailymail.co.uk)
• Robert Nay, 14, designed iPhone puzzle game Bubble Boy that has become number one Apple app (dailymail.co.uk)
• Robert Nay, 14, video game iPhone app Bubble Boy downloaded 2m times (dailymail.co.uk)
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Swine Flu Alert on Schools

Britain is on the brink of a ‘children’s epidemic’ of swine flu as schools and nurseries reopen this week. Doctors warned last night the outbreak – already one of the worst in a decade – could ‘explode’ as at least nine million pupils return to their desks after the Christmas break.
Hot and crowded classrooms provide the perfect breeding ground for flu, which has claimed 39 lives since October, including 11 under-15s.

Fears: Doctors believe there could be a 'children's epidemic' of swine flu when schools and nurseries re-open. Some anxious parents are even threatening to keep children at home.

Professor Steve Field, former chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, warned it will be ‘when people go back to work and school that we will, I suspect, see the sharpest rise, when we really see this become the children’s epidemic’.
And Professor John Oxford, Britain’s leading flu expert, said: ‘We can expect the number of cases to keep going up, possibly reaching epidemic levels before it peaks in the next two to four weeks.
The number of intensive care patients with suspected flu has risen dramatically in the past week to 738. In some hospitals, half the adult intensive care beds are taken up by flu victims, leading to routine operations being cancelled. International evidence suggests that up to 15 per cent of those treated for swine flu in intensive care die.

 If the 738 receiving treatment are suffering from swine flu, that could mean 100 more fatalities. Hospitals are also running out of children’s intensive care beds, with seriously ill babies forced to travel up to 100miles for treatment.

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• Schools put on swine flu alert: As Christmas holidays end, doctors warn of a 'children's epidemic' (dailymail.co.uk)

World's First Organ Donor Dies -56 Years Later

Ronald Lee Herrick was 79 years old when he died Monday in a Maine hospital from complications of heart surgery. He did not die from kidney failure, even though he only had one, and his identical twin brother suffered from renal failure in 1954. That was the year Herrick donated a healthy kidney to his brother in an operation that had never worked before.
The successful surgery kept Herrick’s brother alive for eight years and was the first successful organ transplant, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. Lead surgeon Dr Joseph Murray went on to win the Nobel prize.
The operation proved that transplants were possible and led to thousands of other successful kidney transplants, and later the transplant of other organs.
Doctors around the world had tried a few transplants before the breakthrough operation, without success, said Murray, who went on to perform another 18 transplants between identical twins.

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How big is the Internet?

Dear Friends, here i try to show you all how big is the internet?

Take a look to the picture.

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New Dubai World

THEY were intended as the ultimate luxury possession. But ''The World'', the man-made islands off the coast of Dubai shaped like the countries of the globe, are sinking, a property tribunal has heard.
Developed with hotels and villas, the islands are accessible by boat, but the sands are eroding and navigational channels between them are silting up, the British lawyer for a company bringing a case against state-run developer, Nakheel, told judges. ''The islands are gradually falling back into the sea,'' said Richard Wilmot-Smith QC, for Penguin Marine.
According to Nakheel, 70 per cent of The World's 300 islands have been sold, but most of the development plans have been brought to a crashing halt by the financial crisis. Only one of the islands - Greenland - is inhabited, and that is a showpiece owned by the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.


The company was part of Dubai World, the state-owned conglomerate that had to be bailed out of debts put at $A25 billion at the end of 2009.

Nakheel is also behind Dubai's palm-shaped offshore developments. Villas in the only one near completion, Palm Jumeirah, were given to or bought by footballers, including former England stars David Beckham and Michael Owen. Investors who bought islands proved unwilling or unable to finance further work when Dubai's property prices halved.
John O'Dolan, owner of the company that bought Ireland for $A38.5 million, killed himself, while Safi Qurashi, who bought Britain for $A69 million, is in jail in Dubai after being accused of bouncing cheques. Penguin Marine, which bought the rights to provide boat travel to the islands, is trying to get out of a contract that involves paying an annual fee of about $A1.6 million to Nakheel.

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One Hyde Park, the world's most expensive apartments

The world’s most expensive residential apartments at One Hyde Park have been officially unveiled today by the colourful property duo, the Candy brothers. 

Around 350 guests have been asked to an extravagant launch party at the Knightsbridge development, where they will be shown the apartments which reportedly start a £6.5m for one bedroom and go up to £140m for a penthouse.

The prices, averaging about £6,000 a square foot, are the highest ever paid for residential space, according to property experts. As well as interiors designed by the Candys, residents at the highly anticipated development can call on valets, a concierge and butler room service from the next-door Mandarin Oriental hotel’s two restaurants, overseen by Heston Blumenthal and Daniel Boulud.

The buildings have shared features including a cinema, a 21m swimming pool, saunas, a gym, a golf simulator and a wine cellar. There are eye-scanners in the lifts and panic rooms for added security. The development, which is the Candys most ambitious project yet, is a joint venture between their Gurnsey-based vehicle, CPC Group, and Waterknights, a company owned by the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani.

 It is being watched as a litmus test for the financial health of the super-rich and the popularity of London in the wake of the financial crisis. When the brothers started the project four years ago, it attracted criticism for being too extravagant and expensive. With the onslaught of the credit crisis, many believed that the development would never sell.

But the Candys claim that 60pc of the 83 apartments have already been snapped up, mainly by foreign buyers from the Middle East and Asia.Property experts say that international buyers view London as a stable, safe market for money. The continued weakness of the pound, which is trading 20pc lower against the dollar compared to 2008, has also helped to stimulate the London property market.

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