Longtime weatherman Chris Allen was reprimanded recently for “acting in a juvenile and unprofessional manner”, Vice President Rick McCue of WBKO-TV in Kentucky said.

A video of Allen has recently hit the internet, showing him clowning around in front of a background picture of a woman and her breast (see picture above), with the title “Breast Milk Donors”.

The tape was recoded some years ago, but stolen by an employee and posted to the internet.

In the video, a grinning Allen is seen to lick the nipple and squeeze the breast while making honking noises, whistling and laughing.

The statement made by the station included the following apology from Allen:

“This video – which was never intended to be seen outside of the station – was part of a joke that was played on me during a lighter moment off the air several years ago. I regret that a former employee has decided it is something that everyone should see and took the liberty of posting it on the internet,” Allen said. “I am embarrassed by the whole ordeal and humbly apologise for anyone offended by my actions.”

The video has subsequently been removed from YouTube and Google Video as the station considers the tape to be copyright.

What a great idea. And its obvious that I’m not the only one that thinks so!

BlogRush has just been launched, and it’s a refreshing take on the old ad-banner exchanges which took off way back in the Geocities days, for those who have been on the internet long enough to remember that.

By adding a sidebar widget like the one you can see on the itsNbits sidebar to the right just under Categories, you display links to other interesting blogs in the Blogosphere.

Best of all, it tracks both the number of ads shown on your site, and points gained from friends who you have referred – and credits you with points which then get your blog’s articles advertised on similar sites that are members of BlogRush.

The idea is visitors to your site will generate more advertisements for your site on other blogs, building upon your success, gaining you more ads and thus more visitors – and on the cycle goes.

What’s also cool is that the BlogRush ads for your site that are displayed on other sites are auto-generated from blog posts grabbed from your site’s existing RSS feed – so the ads are dynamic and quite up to date with your site content – no manual intervention or ad tweaking required.

Check it out! While they are a startup they have been hugely successful very quickly, with a near instant massive hit of visitors to their site as popular blogs such as John Chow have been quick to sign up and take advantage.

Come on, be one of the early adopters – and get the current benefits of extra credits while they iron out system bugs – go check out BlogRush for your blog now!

November 9 is the big day when the iPhone is officially released in the UK, handcuffed to O2 as the exclusive, multi-year carrier. Customers will be forced to take out an 18 month plan with O2 for £35, £45 or £55 pounds (US$70-$111) – meaning customers will be up for at least £900 (US$1811) over 18 months.

The 8gig version will sell for £269 (US$542).

Customers will again be forced to unlock their phones using software and hardware hacks, but it remains to be seen if Apple and O2 will change the sale model so that you dont physically get the phone until you sign up to a plan. It is definitely expected that models that go on sale in the UK (and in the US) will start to implement new attempts to mitigate any unlocking of the phones.

Apple are believed to have negotiated to receive 40% of all call/data revenue from each handset.

The iPhone yet again disappoints with its inability to run on a modern 3G network, using legacy 2G technology instead. Many people were expecting the release of a 3G version soon, but are again disappointed.

As per normal, Apple blames others for any product shortcomings, and this time its the 3G chipsets which are labelled “real power hogs”. Its interesting how every other phone manufacturer manages to get OK battery time out of them. Apple say given the other things they want you to do on the iPhone like listen to music, surf the net, there isnt enough battery life. Amazing, because not only can you do those things on most other 3G phones, but it would seem that the issue is caused by things OTHER than 3G normal phone usage – ie music and the internet.

A 3G model is set for release late 2008 (cut a few months off that as they are always conservative so they arent put under pressure).

In a side benefit not related to Apple, O2 have said free WiFi will be available at over 7500 hotspots around the UK.

A few more European countries are expected to have the iPhone released next quarter including Germany (Deutsche Telekom AG), Spain (Telefonica which is the parent of O2) and France (Orange).

Rally champion Colin McRae is believed to have been killed in a helicopter crash near McRae’s house at Jerviswood, near the town of Lanark in southern Scotland.

McRae won the 1995 World Rally Championship and was runner-up in 1996, 1997 and 2001.

McRae and his five year old son, Johnny, are believed to have been killed. Along with them another man and his son who were also found dead in the wreckage.

The wreck of McRae’s Squirrel helicopter (pictured above) was so bad it was initially not known how many people had died in the accident.

McRae, who flew helicopters regularly, is likely to have been piloting the helicopter at the time.

McRae is survived by his wife Alison and his daughter Hollie, 9.

In July McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan was suspended from McLaren after top secret Ferrari technical documents were found in his possession after raids on his house.

The information was sufficient to allow McLaren to gain a good understanding in how to design, engineer, build, check, test, develop and run a 2007 Ferrari F1 car.

It is alleged that Couglan can be linked to Ferrari’s head of performance Nigel Stepney who was fired from Ferrari.

McLaren was initially not penalised for the documents after it was stated there was insufficient evidence that the documents were used.

Apparently suspicions were again raised after it was testified that the 780 page plus document was left with a photocopying company near McLaren’s HQ in Woking who were tasked with making a copy. An employee quickly realised that Formula 1 information of this nature would never be made available to a typical copying store, and called Police to alert them of the suspicious document they were asked to copy. Unlike the first time, this time there was more support that McLaren had used or intended to use the information.

Its likely that Police then contacted Ferrari whose name was all over the document, and Ferrari then obtained a court order to search Coughlin’s house, seizing documents and computers.

Penalty

Today the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile confirmed that after a 10 hour hearing in Paris McLaren received the following penalty:

- Stripped of all 2007 Constructors Points.
- Fined US$100,000,000 (largest sports fine in history)
- No McLaren rep on the podium should McLaren achieve a podium place for the rest of 2007.

McLaren are likely very disappointed with losing constructors points as they were well on their way to their first drivers championship since 1999. Before the loss of points McLaren lead with 166 points versus the second place Ferrari with 143.

Alonso and Hamilton have been allowed to keep their drivers points, however given an independent expert has been appointed to review the McLaren car to see if it can be proven that McLaren have actually utilised the stolen knowledge. It’s quite possible that should it be reasonably proven, both Alonso and Hamilton will be stripped of all points and further penalties may come McLaren’s way. To date McLaren have maintained that while one of thier staff did appear to have access to the illegally obtained information, the information has never been used. McLaren rolled out 140 supporting staff members including their drivers to prove it.

Potentially Ferrari, a fierce rival to McLaren, may seek criminal charges to be laid, and also sue McLaren for theft of intellectual property.

The net is full of good ideas, and another interesting idea in the same vein as Million Dollar Wiki and Million Dollar Homepage is the new Blogging The Movie.

With only 500 spaces available at just $100 each, its bound to sell out fast once word gets around.

Prija has some lofty goals that he hopes bloggers will help him achieve:

1) Raise $50,000 to fund the concept.
2) Buy 2 cars which he will cover with the domain names of the lucky 500 sponsors.
3) Give one car to his little sister who will drive it around California whilst she attends college.
4) Film the whole process from start to scratch.
5) Do a photo shoot with himself and the other car.
6) Start a contest to give the second car away free.
7) Publicise the whole event in the media
Select 10 bloggers, and fly around the world to meet them and experience a few days in the life of each blogger.
9) Produce the movie
10) Submit the movie to various film festivals
11) Put the film on DVD.

At the time of writing, the top 9 positions are taken, leaving only 491 left which is nothing in the scheme of things.

So whats in it for the sponsors?

a) Publicity for their website via the two cars (covered in site ads) being driven about and the story published in the media.
b) Two 200+ word reviews of their website
c) A permanent link and tag on http://www.bloggingthemovie.com/car/
d) The first 20 sponsors will receive a link in the Featured Site section at http://www.bloggingthemovie.com/ and http://www.bloggingthemovie.com/car/ for the rest of 2007.

Its a very interesting concept, and quite possibly one that may pay off in spades for sponsors. Its unique enough that the media may just pick up on the story.

Best of all, if all 500 sponsorship spaces are not sold a full refund will be forthcoming on 1 September 2008, leaving early sponsors with some great potential PR for their websites between now and then: and the sponsors will still receive their two free 200 word reviews and a permanent link on the site.

Best of all if you move fast, at the time of writing, there are still 11 places left in the top 20 – meaning you get even better value for money as you are a Featured Site for the rest of 2007.

What a great idea!

Darin Carter over at www.darin.cc is giving a way a Free iPhone to one lucky person.

Darin has recently founded a search marketing company called Innovative SEM and is celebrating the creation of his new company with the iPhone giveaway on his blog.

Pay Darin a visit and check out his new blog design which went live on September 6th. Its easy to read and has some handy search engine optimization techniques useful to any blogger.

The hardware unlocks are not for the faint hearted, so for those keen to try something simpler, check these instructions out. Why pay to unlock your iPhone when you can do it free by following these instructions?

Soon an easier, graphical unlock will be coming, but in the mean time:

Note: Playing with software, firmware or hardware on an iPhone is at your own risk. It is not an operation that is risk free, especially if you make a mistake.

Whilst this solution is safer than a hardware unlock, it is not without risks. Tread carefully. If in doubt, don’t do it! If any of these steps don’t make sense to you, it may be an indicator you dont have enough knowledge to safely do it.

In addition, there is no information on what will happen if you flash your phone to a newer firmware at a later date, nor whether any other steps by Apple or any Telco may have an impact on your phone after unlocking it. I would consider not upgrading your firmware to later versions until it is well proven they work or can also be unlocked.

You have been warned! Do this at your own risk.

Instructions

Firstly, you must confirm you are running version 1.02 firmware.

Settings → General → About → Version.
Modem Firmware should also say 03.14.08_G

Your phone will also need to be jailbroken you can use iBrickr for this!

When you have iBrickr running install the following.

• Community Sources
• OpenSSH
• BSD Subsystem (might take some minutes)

Next Use WinSCP (root/dottie) and copy the the following files to /usr/bin

• iUnlock
• ICE03.14.08_G.fls
• nor
• minicom
• bbupdater

You can find your iPhones ip address by using the wifi settings and picking your network and hitting the blue arrow will reveal your ip.

Now make a folder under /usr/ called local/etc

So you upload minirc.dfl to /usr/local/etc

Now using putty log back in with your login root/dottie

and run the following commands :

cd /usr/bin/

chmod +x iUnlock

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.CommCenter.plist

iUnlock ICE03.14.08_G.fls nor

Wait a while usually around 20minutes.

After this is complete in putty run

bbupdater -v

You should see issuing +xgendata… and a lot more stuff this is good!

now still in putty type

minicom

When everything loads ok type AT it should respond with OK

If all is good issue these commands next

AT+CLCK=”PN”,0,”00000000″

AT+CLCK=”PN”,2

if it gives a response with 0 your unlocked!

Now run this command in putty:

launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.CommCenter.plist

Et voila! You are unlocked.

[Source: Adapted from information produced by freeiphoneunlock: fantastic effort guys!]