Weird Tech: iPhone survives lorry hit & run

The Australian Monster looks a bit like a lego motorbike, only bigger

A Kansas man has posted photos of his iPhone online after it took on an eighteen-wheel articulated lorry - and lived to ring another day. The man watched in horror from the side of the motorway as his not inexpensive mobile phone was ploughed over by a truck travelling at 75mph.

Genuine Jesus phone

He had accidentally left the iPhone on the boot of his car when he stopped to fill up with petrol. There it remained, for a while, until he pulled on to the motorway causing it to fly off into the path of an oncoming lorry.

Miraculously, the iPhone survived the assault (albeit with some serious scratches to the case) and continues to work seamlessly, according to the owner.

In other news, a gang of would-be Swedish bank robbers who were seconds away from completing an illegal transfer of "millions" were foiled at the last minute when an employee literally pulled the plug on their con. Using "advanced technical equipment" (a device cleverly concealed under the employee's desk) the criminals remotely took control of the man's computer and initiated the operation.

But in a discovery which must surely have earned him 'employee of the week', the man located the device moments before the transfer completed. "By pulling out the cable to the device, the employee managed to stop the intended transfer at the last second," prosecutor Thomas Balter Nordenman told The AP.

100,000 volt stun gun

A man has been sentenced to four years in jail after being found guilty of using a stun gun on his 18-month-old child. Allegedly more powerful than a police taser, the 100,000-volt Dragonfire resulted in muscle damage to the boy's heart, reported Gizmodo. When asked why, the man replied that he wanted his son to be "the toughest cage fighter ever".

And scientists have created an onion that won't make you cry. Using Australian-developed biotechnology, they have been able to switch off the gene behind the enzyme that brings on the tears. Watch out for prototype onions hitting the market in a decade's time.

And finally...

Meet the Australian Monster - a 13-ton beast of a motorbike on display at this year's Melbourne Motor Show in February. Towering overhead at 3m high and 9m long, the oversized bike looks as ridiculous as it does menacing.

Powered by a Detroit Diesel truck engine, the massive two-wheeler is satisfyingly suitable for crushing smaller objects, like school buses and cars (it's obviously never come across an iPhone, then).

"We did stunt driving for quite a few years, broke a few records and broke my back a few times, so this is a way of taking a bit more care," explains stunt driver Ray Baumann. "Now we crush things, which is definitely less risky than jumping them - we still do jump things, but not at the Melbourne Motor Show."

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.