Mandela tea auctioned on Web

The chance to drink tea with Nelson Mandela is to be auctioned on eBay later this year to raise money for a heart unit at a Johannesburg hospital, reports the BBC.

The announcement was made as the South African statesman prepares to celebrate his 88th birthday next week. Singing lessons from diva Miriam Makeba and bungee jumping with cricketer Shaun Pollock will also feature in the November auction.

Organisers hope to raise R80 million for the children`s heart centre. This would pay for about 800 operations at the Walter Sisulu Paediatric Cardiac Centre.

Memory Spot, a technology devised by the research division of HP, is a self-contained storage device with a radio and processor that sticks to photos, documents or cards, reports CNet.

The device is about the same size as a shirt button, but thinner. The spot could contain data like a patient`s medical record. Because data can be rewritten, a doctor or nurse could update the records on a visit.

A senior British policeman has suggested surgically implanted chips be used to track the movements of paedophiles and dangerous sex offenders, reports The Register.

Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, suggests a "pilot scheme for the people who represent the highest risk and who would voluntarily want to go into this".

Critics say the idea has its shortfalls. "What evidence do we have that paedophiles undergo a werewolf-like transition immediately before striking? And if they do, to what extent do the vital signs differ from those produced by, say, running for a bus?"

Following a barrage of criticism from security experts and IT administrators, Microsoft has withdrawn its Private Folder application, reports Beta News.

Introduced last week, the application makes it possible for those who share a PC or account to store files in a separate folder that only they may access. The software hides data from the hard drive in addition to protecting it with a password.

However, the application has raised concern from administrators who feared users would lose their password and not be able to unlock their files. In addition, parents voiced worry that kids could use Private Folder to hide content they download.

Microsoft`s Virtual PC software is free - not just the older Virtual PC 2004 version, but its upcoming software for Vista, too, reports Fox News. Users can download the Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1 software from the Microsoft Web site.

The software allows users to run multiple instances of operating systems on a single computer, allowing users to test a new development environment or simply try out a new configuration without changing the underlying OS.

Microsoft`s Virtual PC 2004 SP1 software requires Windows 2000 Professional SP4, Windows XP Professional or later, or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition or later.