Modern miracle as stolen baby Jesus found

Wiseman: "It would have taken ages without the sat nav…"
Wiseman: "It would have taken ages without the sat nav…"

Florida police have located baby Jesus after he vanished from a nativity scene in Wellington – and they didn't follow a star to find him. Hidden cameras and a GPS device tastefully concealed inside the small figure led officials straight to a nearby apartment, where an 18-year-old girl was arrested.

Religious establishments and ordinary citizens across the state are turning to technology to watch over their mangers this month, the AP reports. Capitalising on the season of goodwill is New York-based BrickHouse Security, which is offering up to 200 non-profit religious institutions a free month's use of its security cameras and LightningGPS products.

Expect to see three wise men bearing sat navs programmed to Bethlehem.

Beware the evils of texting

Sadly not everyone benefited from technology this week – just ask Lizzy Frisinger. It's one thing losing your virginity on a class trip; accidentally texting your dad instead of your friend afterwards is quite another (it was "gr8", by the way).

Having a classmate then upload a picture of your phone plus your photo to the internet is just plain embarrassing.

This is reportedly what happened to Frisinger, 18, from Cleveland, following a class trip to the beach. "Cue a slap to the forehead and widespread humiliation on the interwebs," commented The Inquisitor.

Beam me up, Stuie

In other weird news from the last seven days, a man is selling his flying saucer to pay to power his 650,000 Christmas lights. Stuart Ellis lives on 17 acres with thousands of trees, which he's wrapped with hundreds of lights. The only problem is, he can't afford to power them.

Fortunately for Ellis, the 82-inch diameter spaceship built for 1956 flick Forbidden Planet (and subsequently used in The Twilight Zone) happened to be hanging in his garage. Problem solved.

Get your energy for free

This week has seen increased global efforts to harvest our kinetic energy. On one side of the world, Netherlands-based company Natuurcafé La Port has developed a concept to install a power generator into a revolving door.

Hailed by its inventors as the world's first applications of its kind (that's the strange bit), the door – an entrance to the Driebergen-Zeist railway station – is expected to generate around 4,600kwh per year.

Disco leg

Meanwhile, over in Japan, we caught wind of the altogether-less-environmentally-gallant Yurex – a device that turns restless, tapping legs into, er, music.

Intended to "pull out your inner beat while you concentrate", it works by downloading data from a device strapped to your uncontrollably jiggling leg, which is analysed and subsequently transformed into a "creative beat pattern". Hmmm.

And finally…

When a man broke into Hiram Johnson High School in California and stole a laptop, the hapless thief wasn't banking on the school's anti-theft software taking his picture and sending it back to the school. As well as being able to track the computer, local police were helpfully delivered an image of the man they believe broke into the school. Unlucky…

Julia Sagar
Content director, special projects

Julia specialises in ecommerce at Future. For the last four years, she’s split her time between leading TechRadar’s crack team of deal editors - covering all the biggest sales of the year including Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Amazon Prime Day - and helping the audiences of Future’s consumer tech and lifestyle brands (TechRadar, Tom's Guide, T3, Marie Claire, Woman & Home and more) find the best products and services for their needs and budget.


A former editor of global design website Creative Bloq, she has over 15 years’ experience in online and print journalism, and was part of the team that launched TechRadar way back in the day. When she isn't reviewing mattresses (she’s tested more than she cares to remember), or sharing tips on how to save money in the latest sales, she can usually be found writing about anything from green energy to graphic design.