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Weird Wide Web: Love spells, a gold-plated phone and a really clever chair

All of your essential tech and social media news for the week in one byte-sized portion.

WELCOME TO THE WEIRD Wide Web – where we take a look at the week’s best offerings in tech and social media news.

Fundraising app of the week

Here’s an innovative way of generating charitable funds in the smartphone era. Help for Heros, an organisation in the UK that helps serving and veteran members of the armed forces who are ill or have been seriously injured, has developed this cute mobile game, The Guardian reports.

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Clever chair of the week

People are living such hectic lives lately that even going to a check-up with your GP can be something you feel like you have no time for. This chair is a one-stop-shop, recording your blood pressure, temperature, body motion and pulse all at once. The idea is that they would be placed in public areas, recording your vital stats and giving you the option to video conference with a doctor if anything changed. Downside: It takes the personal touch out of medicine. Upside: No cold hands and awkward chit-chat.

(Video: Diginfonews/YouTube)

Twitter development of the week

Senior Director of Engineering at Twitter Ruslan Belkin told tweeters to follow a new account which is to form part of an experiment for a new feature.

imageBuzzfeed reports that the new account will tell followers when breaking news starts and it is expected that this will eventually be developed into a push notification feature for mobile apps.

Gold-plated phone of the week

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HTC has gone all bling on us this week, releasing a phone plated with 24 carat gold and for €3, 265 it could be all yours. Along with this rather snazzy cherry oak box:

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You could keep your pens in that…

Online exhibition of the week

Google has added some incredible exhibitions to its Cultural Institute this week but one that caught our fancy was that of The Great Pustaha of Sumatra – an ancient book of spells used by Batak priests. The wisdom of nine generations of magician-priests is stored within the book’s pages with spells and incantations for destroying other villages, eliminating opponents and even for inspiring love. Aw.

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View all previous Weird Wide Webs>

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Michelle Hennessy
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