Good Things Happen to Good People

–Hunt for the Camera Owner–

This was sent to us as a tip from “kiltboy,” and after reading it we just couldn’t help but write about it. It’s a story about a New York taxi cab passenger who had found a camera left behind by someone else when they got into the cab. They used the 350 pictures and 2 videos that were on the camera to hunt down the owners:

After several phone calls and a visit to the hotel to show the pictures around, Nancy Ascher persuaded an employee to search the Radisson’s guest records by first name and country of residence. Indeed, a Noel from Ireland had stayed there on the date stamped on the photo. Nancy Ascher charmed the hotel employee into sharing the guest’s e-mail address.

You’ve got to read the entire story to learn how the whole thing evolved, and how the owner was actually found. By the time I got done reading that I was wondering whether I would have gone through that much work to try and find the owner. But there was a happy ending:

Murphy, an insurance underwriter, had been devastated to lose the pictures from a trip he had planned for years. It was Jan. 10 — his 34th birthday — when he heard he would be getting the photos back. “I was over the moon,” he says now. “Best present ever.”

“I owe you one,” he wrote to Ascher. “It’s good to know there are some honest people left in the world.”

–Bluetooth Legs–

Late last week CNN wrote about an Iraq veteran, Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Bleill, who had a bomb explode under his Humvee back in 2006. He managed to survive the blast, but was forced to have both legs amputated.

Bleill is one of two Iraq veterans getting outfitted with the next generation of prosthetic legs. Each leg amazingly communicates with the other:

Bleill’s set of prosthetics have Bluetooth receivers strapped to the ankle area. The Bluetooth device on each leg tells the other leg what it’s doing, how it’s moving, whether walking, standing or climbing steps, for example.

“They mimic each other, so for stride length, for amount of force coming up, going uphill, downhill and such, they can vary speed and then to stop them again,” Bleill told CNN from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he’s undergoing rehab.

It’s astounding that Bluetooth technology has come so far that it’s even being implemented in prosthetic legs, and it will probably have a great impact on many people’s lives.