Push-to-Divorce, Mobile Fire Detectors and Aussie Insomnia

The government of Malaysia

has given its blessing for Muslim men to divorce their wives via wireless text messaging. The precedent was set last week when an Islamic court ruled in favor of a man who terminated his marriage by notifying his wife over her wireless device. “SMS is just another form of writing,” said Hamid Othman, a religious adviser to Malaysian Prime Minister Mathahir Mohamad, in an interview with the New Straits Times. Othman added that divorce messages must be clear and concise. Under existing Islamic law, men can also divorce their spouses by saying “I divorce you” three times in a row.

Romanian expatriate Marian Gavrila has submitted to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office a patent application for a mobile phone that would warn users against fire and toxic gas leaks. Gavrila said the phone includes sensors that transmit information about sudden temperature changes and the presence of smoke, methane or carbon monoxide. Gavrila added that future iterations of the device could include biosensors to warn against harmful toxins, bacteria, viruses and even nuclear radiation.

While the rest of Australia slept Tuesday night, dozens of residents throughout the Queensland area were abruptly awakened at about 4:00 a.m. by the ringing of their mobile phones--the result of an overzealous real estate agent who sent out a mass spam mailing. The text mailing, which promoted the real estate services of Ray White’s Surfers Paradise office, was sent by an unnamed staffer who harvested the list of mobile numbers in question from a database assembled by a local nightclub. “You can't go out and break the Privacy Act like that,” said Surfers Paradise joint managing director Gregory Bell. “Severe disciplinary action will be taken. We certainly apologize.”