Skype confirms 3D video calls development

The news was revealed by a senior executive in an exclusive interview with the BBC to mark Skype's 10th anniversary.

There had been speculation about the possibility after the firm posted an advert in April saying it wanted to find a way to create "body-doubles" for workers unable to travel to meetings.

However, the executive warned it could be many years before the tech launched.

"We've done work in the labs looking at the capability of 3D-screens and 3D-capture," said Microsoft's corporate vice-president for Skype, Mark Gillett.

"We've seen a lot of progress in screens and a lot of people now buy TVs and computer monitors that are capable of delivering a 3D image.

"But the capture devices are not yet there. As we work with that kind of technology you have to add multiple cameras to your computer, precisely calibrate them and point them at the right angle.

"We have it in the lab, we know how to make it work and we're looking at the ecosystem of devices and their capability to support it in order to make a decision when we might think about bringing something like that to market."

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Switzerland's first drive-in 'sex boxes'

Greeted by a press pack rather than prostitutes, the first customer to roll up to Switzerland's sex drive-in on opening night took one lap of the facility before making a hasty exit.

The second car, a family vehicle driven by a man in sunglasses under cloudy evening skies, broke down and needed jump starting in front of a host of photographers, sniggering into their cameras.

Zurich authorities had said they expected a modest start to the country's first so-called "sex boxes", a row of drive-in wooden garages on a looping track where clients in cars can visit prostitutes, shielded from prying eyes and security cameras.

With an estimated annual turnover of around 3.5 billion Swiss francs ($3.79 billion), prostitution has been legal in Switzerland since 1942, with sex workers in Zurich required to have a special permit, health insurance and pay tax.

The number of prostitutes in the Alpine nation has risen sharply over the last decade, due to the decriminalization of procuring and passive solicitation of sex alongside agreements between Switzerland and the European Union on free movement of people.

The sex boxes, which echo similar drive-in systems in the Netherlands and Germany, are being touted as a way to get large numbers of prostitutes and their clients off Switzerland's otherwise pristine streets.

BOXES AND CAMPER VANS

Complete with panic buttons in each shed, showers, a laundry room and on-site health workers, supporters say the system offers relative security to sex workers and privacy to their clients, while reducing the disturbance to locals.

"The existing strips were simply too strained," said Ursula Kocher at Zurich's welfare department.

"The conditions for the women were completely unhygienic and dangerous, they had to work in woods or secluded car parks," Kocher said, standing in front of the boxes.

Only four prostitutes were on site at the start of the evening, but Kocher said she was sure more women would come to the compound, where they would have access to contraceptives, counseling and sexual health checks.

Between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m., men can cruise along the track and choose a prostitute from wooden shelters before parking in one of the nine drive-in boxes.

Though clients must arrive alone in a car, they also have the option of parking and visiting two smaller boxes or one of four camper vans on foot.

Prostitutes at the facility declined to talk to journalists or allow them to take their pictures.

LEGAL PROSTITUTION

Some critics have voiced concern that the novel fascination with the sex boxes, which have cost taxpayers more than 2 million francs to construct, is a distraction from more serious issues about exploitation and human trafficking.

"It would be more revealing to ask: what sort of men buy sexual services of young women on the street?" said Andrea Gisler, president of Zurich's Frauenzentrale women's group, adding the boxes only relocated red light activities to the outskirts of the city.

"The prostitutes and their protection has never come into it," Gisler said.

The conditions for sex workers may be better in countries where prostitution is legal, but a global study showed this year that they also report higher influxes of human trafficking.

One author of the study, Eric Neumayer at the London School of Economics, said the new system in Zurich could aid monitoring of human trafficking.

"If it's a very controlled environment, it should be easier to do checks on where the women come from, if they are there against their will," Neumayer said.

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Melbourne, the most livable city in the world

Melbourne, Australia was named the world's most livable city for the third year in a row, according to a survey of 140 cities released this month by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) that also ranked the Syrian capital Damascus last.

The capital of Australia's southeastern state of Victoria beat out Vienna, followed by Canadian cities Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary. Australia's Adelaide, Perth and Sydney also made it into a top 10 list which included the Finnish capital, Helsinki, and Auckland, New Zealand.

"We feel immensely proud that Australia's fastest growing city has again been recognized as the most livable city in the world," Agent-General for the Victorian Government in Britain Geoffrey Conaghan said in an emailed statement.

The survey ranked Melbourne first among cities based on five categories of stability, health care, culture and environment, education and infrastructure, while highlighting the decline of Damascus, alongside Egypt's Cairo and Tripoli in Libya, as a result of civil unrest across the Middle East and North Africa.

Unrest since Arab uprisings in 2011, which led to civil wars in Syria and Libya, as well as upheaval in Egypt, have pushed Damascus, Tripoli and Cairo down the rankings in the annual survey. Damascus dropped 10 places from last year to hit bottom.

"While the threat of terror had a defining influence on livability in the last decade, we can clearly see that civil unrest has already had a significant impact on livability in this decade," survey editor Jon Copestake said in a statement on the EIU website.

The survey excludes cities such as Kabul in Afghanistan and Baghdad in Iraq, long plagued by conflict and insecurity.

Damascus, once regarded as a relatively secure city in the Middle East, had been a growing tourist destination before an uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2011.

On Wednesday, residents were bracing for possible Western military action in response to a poison gas attack which killed hundreds of people in the city's suburbs a week ago.

Other cities placed in the bottom 10 in the livability survey included Dhaka in Bangladesh, Lagos in Nigeria, Libya's Tripoli, Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea and Harare in Zimbabwe.

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Young Chinese boy's eyes gouged out in attack

Police in China have offered a reward for information leading to the arrest of a woman suspected of gouging out a six-year-old boy's eyes.

The attack happened in Fenxi, Shanxi province, on 24 August.

The boy went out to play and hours later was found by his parents with his eyes removed and covered in blood.

The boy is now recovering in hospital. Police have offered a reward of 100,000 yuan ($16,340, £10,500) for information linked to the case.

"The boy was lured by an unknown woman on Saturday evening into a field, where she gouged out his eyes," state news agency Xinhua reported.

The boy's parents are said to be farmers. His mother said her son told them he was walking outside when a woman attacked him, state media reported.

Police found the boy's eyeballs at the scene. Local reports initially said the corneas were missing, potentially pointing towards organ trafficking.

Police now say, however, that the corneas were not missing and they have yet to establish a motive for the attack.

"We are still working on it so we cannot offer any comment or make any assumption on the motives," a police officer in Fenxi told the AFP news agency.

The boy was initially taken to a local hospital but was transferred to Shanxi Eye Hospital in the provincial capital, Taiyuan, on Sunday.

Local television footage showed family members trying to comfort the heavily-bandaged child.

"We had no disputes with anybody," state news agency Xinhua reported quoted his mother as saying.

Doctors at the hospital say his condition is stable but he will be blind for life.

"He asks why the sky is always dark... and why the dawn still hasn't come," Beijing Youth Daily quoted an uncle of the boy as saying.

"We could only tell him that his eyes had some injury and have to be bandaged.

"It is such a difficult question to explain to him. It is the most heartbreaking thing."

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Randeep Hooda locks lips with male co-star Saqib Saleem

Randeep Hooda's not one to shy away, especially when it comes to kissing on screen! He's done in it films like Jism 2 and Murder 3.

But what took his kissing skills a step further was when he locked lips for the first time with his male co star Saqib Saleem (Huma Qureshi's brother) in Bombay Talkies.

Off late, there are stories doing the round that Randeep will once again kiss his John Day male co star Sikander. As per sources, the film's director Ashishor Solomon has described Randeep's character as evil without disclosing too many details.

But sources further add that the film has a gang fight scene and Randeep's character in a fit of rage kisses Sikander's character.

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Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones separated

Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones have separated in what could spell the end of their nearly 13-year marriage, People magazine reported on Wednesday.

Douglas and Zeta-Jones, both Oscar winners and among Hollywood's most high-profile couples, have in recent months vacationed separately, appeared at red carpet events without the other and are ostensibly living apart, the magazine said in its new issue, citing "two close confidants" of the couple.

Catherine Zeta-Jones,left, and Michael Douglas 

"They're taking a break," one person told the magazine, which added that neither star has filed for divorce nor moved toward a legal separation.

Douglas' New York office had no comment on the report, and representatives of Zeta-Jones did not respond to requests seeking comment.

Douglas, 68, and Zeta-Jones, 43, married in 2000 and have two children. Both have struggled with health issues in recent years.

Zeta-Jones said in April that she was seeking help for bipolar disorder, her second-known trip to a healthcare facility for the condition since 2011 when she sought treatment for what aides said was the stress of coping with Douglas' advanced throat cancer diagnosis in 2010 and subsequent treatment.

"The stress has taken a toll on their marriage," People quoted a friend as saying.

The A-list couple decided to spend time apart shortly after Douglas returned from the Cannes Film Festival in France in May, where his Emmy-nominated movie about Liberace, "Behind the Candelabra," was screened.

They first met in 1998 at the Deauville Film Festival in France, began dating the following year, got engaged on New Year's Eve of 1999 and co-starred in the 2000 release "Traffic."

Zeta-Jones, most recently seen in the summer release "Red 2," had at that point recently returned from round of treatment to monitor her bipolar disorder, the magazine said.

Douglas has won Oscars as a producer of the 1975 best picture "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and as best actor in 1987's "Wall Street." Zeta-Jones won her best supporting actress Academy Award for the 2002 musical "Chicago."

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Khloe Kardashian wants husband Lamar Odom to take lie test

Reality TV star Khloe Kardashian reportedly wants Lamar Odom to take a polygraph test to see if he is lying about alleged affairs with two other women.

The Keeping Up with the Kardashians star is said to be furious that her husband of four years has been accused of having affairs with two different women and told him he must prove himself to her, reported Contactmusic.

“Things have never looked worse but Khloe wants to know the truth and if it means getting Lamar to do a polygraph test then so be it. Lamar is appalled and totally offended by the idea. Every time she starts grilling him, Lamar hits the roof and accuses her of not trusting him. Then he just clams up or hangs up. He hates confrontation,” a source said.

According to reports, Odom cheated on her with Jennifer Richardson for a year until March 2013 and also had a six-week long affair with lawyer Polina Polonsky at the start of the summer.

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