Five to watch

Luxury literature

High-end publishing houses are attacking the luxury book market with novel extravagance. Publisher Kraken Opus mixed one pint of Indian cricket star Sachin Tendulkar’s  blood with paper pulp to create the signature page of a book celebrating the batsman’s career. The book’s pages will be edged with gold leaf and 10 special editions, to be published in February next year, have already sold for $75,000 (£48,000) a piece.

Source: PSFK.com; BBC.co.uk

Pocket doc

Mobile health clinics are more mobile than ever thanks to Afridoctor, a smartphone app launched in South Africa. Created by Cape Town based Blueworld Communities, the app offers a “snapdiagnosis” service whereby patients send images of their symptoms to a panel of doctors for examination and then receive a response within 48 hours. The app’s creators have acknowledged one major flaw – that very few South Africans own smartphones capable of running the app. Meanwhile in Canada, isolated communities can receive doctor’s consultations via Rosie the robot, whose cameras are remotely manipulated by a doctor.

Source: BBC.co.uk; Stylist.co.uk

Eyecatching

Find out what really catches your customers’ eyes by asking them to wear Tobii glasses. They use eye-tracking technology to monitor customer behaviour, yet look and feel just like an ordinary pair of glasses, helping users to behave naturally. As well as helping to evaluate new products and traditional advertising, the technology can help researchers and developers to understand how customers use mobile devices, operate machinery or drive.

Source: Tobiiglasses.com

Groom school

Last year 10 per cent of marriages in South Korea were to a foreign spouse. But so many of the country’s cross‑border romances are ending in divorce that the government is stepping in to offer classes on marriage ethics for men who want to marry a foreign woman. From now on South Korean men who want to marry a woman from another country will have to attend courses at the ministry of justice’s immigration offices before their brides – often from China or Southeast Asia – will be granted visas. Would-be grooms will learn that it is wrong to think they are buying a wife, or to conceal past marriages or personal problems such as alcoholism.

Source: Stylist.co.uk

Cool treats for hot dogs

A team of pet nutritionists has developed a range of ice cream that is the perfect temperature, texture and taste for dogs. Flavours on sale from the K99 van include “dog eat hog world”, a chicken and gammon sorbet and “canine cookie crunch”, a vanilla ice cream sprinkled with dog biscuits. Owners bored by vanilla whip can try the treats themselves as the ice creams are also entirely safe for human consumption.

Source: Reuters.com