As if taking off your belt and having to empty out the contents of your handbag every time you go through airport security weren't enough, Manchester airport has just introduced scanners that reveal your naked body to the security staff.

As the Guardian puts it: "It will reveal a clear outline of passengers genitalia, as well as any false limbs, breast enlargements or body piercings."

Yes.

The past year has seen an outbreak and panic about the dreaded Swine Flu.

If you're like us and you haven't yet had the pesky pig illness then you might be a little bit concerned about how it will spread over the winter.

Google's also cottoned onto this and its now expansion of Google Flu Trends to 16 additional countries, including much of Europe. It's also made the site available in 37 languages.

The site works by tracking the popularity of certain Google search queries, and using these to estimate the level of flu, in near real-time.

While some traditional flu surveillance systems may take days or weeks to collect and release data, Google search queries can be counted immediately. Google claims that its Flu Trends provides an "additional surveillance tool that may help public health officials and the public make more informed decisions about preparing for the flu season."

It also says it's seen a good correspondence between its estimates and official flu activity data.

However, it's not just swine flu, this little tool covers every flu like illness going so it's definitely worth a quick peek.

Last week saw Apple dominate the news, so we thought we'd have a fresh new week of weird and wonderful technology goodness. Here's the best bits from the blogosphere.

-CrunchGear get their hands on a vid of the latest Archos to hit the block, and we're drooling already...

Coolest Gadgets share with us a funky cordless pivoting vacuum cleaner from Black and Decker. It's almost enough to make me want to do housework..almost.

A giant rat robot. I guess everyone needs a hobby. The Raw Feed is quite excited about this though, and it's called Psikharpax .

Chip Chick review Microsoft Office Live, and decide Cloud Computing is the way forward.

-Bonnie Ruberg of Heroine Sheikh is getting married! Yes, I know there is no geek context as she's going for the white dress and boyfriend in tux-not Darth Vader costume, but we're soo excited for her!

More news here.

How do you sell a computer to women? Give them a pinikified website with a female friendly name and they'll be like, totally all over it. Umm yeah. That seemed to be the genius behind the marketing campaign from Dell, who were looking to get women interested in the Dell netbooks.

Feedback on the site hasn't been as positive as Dell would have hoped (think angry jeering from women who know what a netbook is), and they just re-branded their site AGAIN with slightly less pink graphics (see old version below).

Whilst I might debate the lure of looking at mastectomy images, I think I'd be hard pressed to describe them as 'sexual and abusive', but that's just what Facebook did. They removed all images of Sharon Adams operation, and told her it was inappropriate and offensive.

Way back in January we were uber excited about the news of a new addition to the Sony walkman family, the brand spanking X Series walkman. It was debuted at CES,
and we learnt all about how it combined useful wireless capabilities with a gorgeous looking 3 inch OLED screen. That dream has just become a reality as the X series is available to purchase from today.

But how does this lovely looking MP3 player match up to the likes of the iPod Touch, arguably its biggest competitor? Will the OLED screen be enough to position this player at the top of the tree, or will it be fisticuffs at dawn? Read on to find out....

Are there any developers left NOT featuring or planning a downloadable app store? And is the continual creation of more and more apps really helping anybody? Sure, if you're an iPhone or Android user you'll welcome the large variety of (often free) applications that let you do everything from check you train times to play the latest flash game. But whilst this format may work on some of the latest smart phone handsets on offer, does Vodafone really have anything to bring to the table?

How do you feel when adverts come on TV? Frustrated? Excited? Unhappy when they finish? If you agreed with the last two adjectives then you'll be thrilled to hear that SKY are now going to provide you with more adverts than ever on their channels, and if you fell into the former category than you'll be beating yourself about the head with a wet fish right now.

But don't fret yourself too much, the added advertising doesn't force itself on you, rather you can opt in for all the added excitement, such as behind the scenes footage of how certain adverts were made and extras such as interviews with stars. To access this content you simply press the green button on your remote. This will take you to extended footage of the advert, and possibly some exclusive content.

I've been a hardened sci-fi fan ever since I first stumbled across Question Quest by Piers Anthony. My youth comprised of devouring novel after novel, from Pratchett's puns to the futuristic fantasies of Gibson, and naturally related movies were a close second love. Fans of Bladerunner, the Matrix and the recently released Watchmen will be wetting themselves in anticipation of this forthcoming geekfest- a week long extravaganza that comprises of brand new science fiction films and related seminars for aspiring authors and auteur's.

Anyone who's a fan of downloading content can't fail to have heard of Pirate Bay as it's one of the largest online resources that lists places to get content from. Whether it's handheld movies taken in a cinema, or the latest tracks from Lily Allen, you can find pretty much anything you want online, and then all you need is a download client and you have free movies and music. Yes, you realize that you're not paying for this media, so what you're doing is ILLEGAL-and the people who are providing this to you are considered criminals.

The issue here is who's to blame- and are the people who offer you access to this content really at fault; plus will punishing them change anything? After all, Pirate Bay never supplied you with the content- they merely indexed the torrents you needed to get it from! So whilst you could argue they behave in a 'morally wrong' way, are they really breaking the law?

This was the hotly debated question in court last week as the Swedish men behind Pirate Bay were taken to trial for a severe grilling about willingly, knowingly and happily flaunting pretty much every type of copyright law that exists. The case was the culmination of two years of legal action against Pirate Bay, led by a selection of 'justifiably outraged' media and entertainment companies, with IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) spearheading it.

We've seen a lot of sinister attempts from the Japanese to bring us a robot with human-like features and they'll get there... eventually. It's just right now, they're still in the very freakishly scary/nightmare inducing stage. But hey, if you want to experience what it's like to have a kid akin to Damien or the little boy in Pet Cemetery (basically, a very *very* creepy child) but don't want to be responsible for producing the spawn of evil, might I suggest waiting maybe a few years for one of these absolutely ghastly robotic creations. CB2 is slowly developing social skills (and his plan to take over the world) by interacting with humans and watching facial expressions. It can also dangle its legs and from a chair in a very child-like way, move its shoulders while breathing and follow movements with those disturbing black eyes.

There's a video of it in action after the jump is you think you can handle it...

Almost a year ago, it was revealed the US army's attempt to recruit would-be soldiers into the army involved a disillusioning 14,500-square-foot recruiting centre/video arcade/retail store, which war, or no war is bloody exciting - they also made use of everyone's favourite social networking site, Facebook. Taking a leaf out of their book, the UK army is now employing online video games in a recruitment drive. They say it's to inspire youngsters to join, but what better way to entice the kids to join the army than with virtual reality and the blurring of the boundaries between real life and the virtual. I just hope the potentials know that taking a bullet and having live grenades explode meters from where they are will be nothing like the real thing - there may be tears if they're not made fully aware of what they're signing up for.

We already know Barack Obama is the most tech savvy president to have ever stepped foot in the White House, but this just confirms it. On his official visit to Buck House last night, he came bearing a gift for our majesty the Queen. That gift was an Apple iPod, packed full of video of her 2007 visit to the US and a load of tracks from Broadway musicals including Cats, South Pacific and Oklahoma. I hope Obama was short on time - what else would explain this unimpressive iPod content?

He may have thought he was welcoming her to the Apple party, but he has in fact been beaten to the punch, by the Queen herself. The Queen got herself a silver iPod waaaay back in 2005. I'd like to think she's upgraded by now, perhaps to the macdaddy of iPods - the iPod Touch? The Queen's gift gesture was a little less high-tech - it was her traditional gift of a framed photograph of herself and Prince Phillip (who, if I'm not mistaken put his foot in when being introduced).

[via Tech Digest]

Like this? Read these: The Queen gets onto Google| Oh my god the Queen's a technophile

Remember that nail bitingly exciting news we brought you at the beginning of the year, detailing our official partnership with those nerdlingers over at The Gadget Show Live, to be held on April 17th-19th, at the Birmingham NEC Arena? Well, if you were thinking 'I'd love to meet the Shiny Shiny and Tech Digest tech team' and were hoping to bag yourself some entrance permitting tickets, you're going to kick yourself - we've just been informed they've completely and utterly sold out. However, there is a glimmer of hope at the end of this long dark tunnel and its competition shaped.

Yes, that's right Dan over at Tech Digest has a whole bunch burning a hole in his drawer and seeing as he prefers his drawers to come without inconvenient craters he's going to be giving them away very soon. So watch this space.

To those who foresaw a ticket purchasing catastrophe (and who are no doubt smiling smugly to themselves right now), we'll see you down at the NEC at the How To Theatre on the dates detailed above.

Gadget Show Live 2009

There's no denying violent video games influence us. They make murder seem more acceptable, educate kids on the variety of weapons available and imply that murder and mayhem are natural parts of life.

When you put it like that it sounds outrageous that they're available, and not highly restricted items- but then you realize the same could also be said of films (glamorize drugs and guns), music (ditto) and even the news seems to enjoy using as many adjectives as they can to relate to death (alright, maybe just the Mail).

So considering the many, many sources of glamorized violence, should we really start placing video games on the same level as drugs and alcohol in terms of threat to our children? MP Nick Gibbs thinks so- he want teachers to consider them equal to lethal weapons when found in a school.

Now the April Fools Day buzz has settled down and the persistent gaggery has gradually waned, it's time to reveal if you were April Fooled. Unfortunately, we live in a time when almost anything is possible so I must admit, I was taken in, by one story in particular. I won't say which one, realised I'd been duped. But forget about me, were you fooled? Let's take a look at what comical gadgets infiltrated the web this morning.

The world's first flying five star 'Hotelicopter'

It looks believable, the concept isn't too outlandish, so why wouldn't there be such thing as a helicopter-style hotel? Well, when you consider it was said to have 18 luxurious rooms "for adrenalin junkies seeking a truly unique and memorable travel experience", its believability factor drops somewhat. Read all about it here.