while you sip on your venti latte?

Overcoming their reluctance to waste the Fire Service's time paid off for a Timaru family who noticed a "funny smell" inside their home last night.

Herald reporter Fleur Cogle noticed the smell at her Matai Crescent home late on Monday night, but no amount of checking could locate the source.

"I felt reluctant about wasting Fire Service time but knew I wouldn't sleep unless it was checked,wholesale fashion shoes so I called 111 for peace of mind."

And that decision proved correct, as it is in around 60 per cent of cases, Senior Station Officer Lex Ferguson explained. Further checking for the smell by the fire crew found melted wire in the switchboard.

"There was no actual fire, and no smoke, just a funny smell in the switchboard area which also felt very warm to touch.

"As it was explained to me,the wire might have continued to melt and eventually cause a fire - or it could have gone out. Either way, it's fair to say we are relieved - both that we made the call and that we discovered the wire when we did,'' Ms Cogle said.

At this time of year the Fire Service gets a call to a smell or some other unusual incident in Timaru about once every six weeks, and they are more than happy with that, Mr Ferguson said.

"We would rather get called in the early stages than to the flames through the roof of the house at 2am."

If they did not find anything, but the smell returned, they were keen to be told so they could have another attempt at locating it, as obviously something was wrong.

He said people were often embarrassed to call them, but there was no need, as often as not the crew did find the cause of the smell. A thermal imaging camera used by the crew can locate "hot spots" behind walls or in other concealed spaces.

"Smell" calls were more common in summer, when the source was often smoke drifting into a house from a burnoff.

Sometimes it is only because a number of people around the country called about the same problem, that a fault in an appliance is detected. Mr Ferguson recalled that being the case with an early-model flat screen TV, and more recently, with some models of Samsung washing machines.

 Sick of looking for an outlet to charge your phone while you sip on your venti latte? It may be a thing of the past, if Starbucks has anything to say about it.

The coffee shop giant recently announced that some of its stores in Silicon Valley will allow customers to charge their phones using wireless charging technology. One of its San Jose, Calif., stores is debuting the capability today.

Linda Mills, a spokeswoman for Starbucks, said that the company was looking at the next big thing to improve the coffee drinker's experience while in the store.

"Customers are using mobile devices more and more," she told ABC News. "Keeping your devices powered is a problem."

Starbucks uses the Duracell Powermat to charge both phones and tablets. Customers will lay their smart device flat on a designated Powermat surface.

According to Daniel Schreiber, the president of Powermat Technologies, the closer the device, the more efficient the power transfer.

"Using wireless charges just as fast as a cable, with no degradation, at all," he told ABC News.

He added that at each participating Starbucks, there are 10 to 12 wireless charging stations, meaning that even though the technology may not require a plug, you still might be vying for valuable coffee shop real estate with other customers.
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