Sang-Woo Kim of Sungkyunkwan University found a way to convert noise to electricity, which can in turn be used to charge your cell phone. As usually when we come upon such stories, we pass it around the office, we have a good laugh and get done with it.

However we were amazed to see that this went all over the news as if it really was some kind of a breakthrough so we decided to make a few things clear here. We see you rising your eyebrows here and wonder how come we are not excited by the prospect of charging our phones by simply talking to them? Well, thats just because its impossible and its never going to happen as anyone with a basic understanding of physics will tell you.

For starters the device that converts sound waves to electricity has been around for ages its called "microphone". The problem is that it generates so little electricity that its not useful for anything but transmitting small amounts of data.

Then comes the source claiming that at the current state of their project they are producing 50 millivolts from 100 decibels of noise, but they promise to do better in the future. Do you know how much 100 decibels amount to? Lets just say that a gasoline engine chainsaw produces noise in the range of 90-112 decibels. Yes, 100dB is that loud. You Simply Cannot make this kind of Noise with your Mouth !!

Today Nokia has released the dedicated LinkedIn app for free for Symbian smartphones. It’s the social network for professionals and business contacts out there.

Its a full-featured app, which allows you to send/receive messages, invites for new contacts and browse profiles.It also has the functionality to recommend people to you, based on your contacts – much like in Facebook.

Here are a couple of shots of the app itself. The first one is the main app window. And here is the inbox and the reconnect screen.

The app is created, using the Qt development tool and the LinkedIn platform.

How much longer are you going to make us wait for the update to Angry Birds Rio? Next week is just around the corner and you are not helping our patience much by teasing us with this fresh gameplay video you have just released. The new video is pretty exciting and shows that Rovio is keeping its word about how fun the new update is. In the gameplay video, our trusty angry birds are on the Rio de Janeiro beach and are giving the evil green pigs a break. Instead, they have their eyes on the nimble little marmosets.

In addition to the new levels, which from the demo video look more interesting than ever, there are new birds! Yes, the new additions to the angry birds team are Blu and Jewell the two lovebirds from the movie Rio. You can fire them at the vicious monkeys and they fly in a very interesting way.

We can only guess for now how powerful they are and how exactly they are going to be introduced to the story line. We will see. Also, there is a new fruit to be collected juicy golden watermelons. The new Angry Birds Rio update will be available next week. Unfortunately, we do not know exactly when, but we will let you know as soon as it hits the app stores.

Google Maps for Android 5.4.0 has been released today. It brings a unified search history, enhanced details for businesses on the map and a means to report wrong map information and missing places.

The first change means that your maps searches will be saved to your Google account so that you can access them on other devices such as on your computer or another Android phone or tablet. This is a good addition as it facilitates our everyday use of Google Maps without the need to go through every address anew after switching devices.

Lets say you are searching for a specific business in Google Maps. The enhanced details feature gives you more information about it and tapping on the business gives you an extra details section with important information on it.

Finally, the new update allows you to inform Google if a specific address or place is not where Maps points to. The guys over at the Google Maps team will then hopefully fix the mistake to prevent future confusion.

Download the New Google Maps

Google has conducted a survey on the use of smartphones and how they influence our lives and how we influence businesses with our smartphones daily. The survey was carried out by Ipsos OTX and it features many statistical facts and a short video, explaining the results. Of ocurse, the research was focused on marketing and it aims to explore and promote the smartphone as the next-gen ad platform and a source of new revenue for Google.

The results of the research show that we use our smartphones vigorously throughout our day, at home and at the office, and even in the bathroom. It shows that by using our smartphones as guides on shopping products of all types incl. groceries makes us more pretentious customers with a higher demand for the quality and adequate pricing.

Here are just some of the highlights:

• 81% browse the Internet, 77% search, 68% use an app, and 48% watch videos on their smartphone
• 72% use their smartphones while consuming other media
• 93% of smartphone owners use their smartphones while at home 
• 95% of smartphone users have looked for local information
• 88% of these users take action within a day, indicating these are immediate information needs
• 71% search on their phones because of an ad exposure, whether from traditional media (68%) to online ads (18%) to mobile ads (27%)
• 82% notice mobile ads, especially mobile display ads and a third notice mobile search ads