The tourists, a skier and snowboarder, were lost in the mountains of Southeast Switzerland, with temperatures reaching -15 degrees Celsius. They attempted to phone for help, but their mobile phone ran out of juice just after making the connection. Luckily, the faint light of an iPod screen was enough to catch the eye of a helicopter rescue team, who recovered the two sports enthusiasts quickly enough to avoid any more serious consequences than very mild hypothermia.

Reuters reported this story, but didn't go into the kind of detail that techies like you and I really need. What kind of iPod was it? What generation? What brightness setting was the backlight set to? Is there a difference in helicopter visibility between, say, LCD and OLED? Without that kind of information, I don't know that I can ever go skiing in remote Swiss mountains again. [Reuters]

Forget inflatable sumo, how about inflatable football?
If you ever wanted to go as the headless giant to a Halloween party, now's the time.
Standard issue for shorter-than-normal club doormen.
Fashion, darling.

The Lifebag costs $1,100 and won't be available in the US until December 2008. [Snowpulse via Cool Hunting]

Lukas Aider and Christoph Kurtz had fished out the 13-pound deadly "Frisbee" while they were splashing around in the Danube. Unaware of the danger they were in, the two students started messing around with the weapon, and it was only when a policeman appeared, alerted by a lifeguard, that they stopped their game of death.

Bomb disposal experts were later called to make the Frisbee safe. [Ananova via With Leather]

If this is the future of travel, where do I sign up? A bunch of Swiss aeronautical designers have spent the last five years working on the SmartFish project, a lightweight, fuel-efficient hydrogen fuel cell-powered aircraft. Now at the small model prototype phase, they claim that a full-scale model of their invention will carry two people at 560mph using less fuel than a car.

The HyFish prototype (you can see it in action on the SmartFish website) has a small wingspan, so flight relies on an aerodynamic configuration known as a lifting body. It is this and the craft's fuel-cell turbofan technology that make it work. Construction is simple and, with few moving parts and low operating and maintenance costs, it shouldn't be too costly to build - well, that's what they say.

There are two plans afoot: firstly, to make a 20-foot two-seater; and later on, a design that will fit 20 people on board. Finally, someone is making the minibus sexy. – Ad Dugdale

Product Page [SmartFish via Sci-Fi Tech]

Let's see if we've got this straight. The Swiss get self-cleaning toilets and the Japanese get toilets that treat your ass like a Queen. What do we get? A bald pirate pressuring housewives to clean more often. – Jason Chen

Thanks Chris!