Beijing officials have introduced a new ruling aimed at beautifying the city's public lavatories. The Beijing Municipal Commission of City Administration and Environment has announced that there will be a limit of two flies in each cubicle. The city has directed its washroom attendants to pay greater attention to toilet cleanliness and be especially vigilant when it comes to flies. City spokesman Xie Guomin said the ruling was a "new standard for public toilet management". He added: "We will not actually count fly numbers. The regulation is specific and quantified, but the inspection methodology will be flexible." Mr Guomin also said there were no measures in place to enforce the ruling. The two-fly limit is part of a wider initiative to improve toilet cleanliness in Beijing. It is a continuation of measures introduced in 2008 for the Beijing Olympics. The rules will be implemented in places such as parks and public gardens, tourist spots, railway stations, hospitals and shopping malls. Other rules cover the setting of standards on odours in toilets, the type of cleaning equipment used by public toilet staff and the cleaning of litter bins. The guidelines on litter say that no more than two discarded items should be left in a toilet and they should be removed within 30 minutes. The 'Beijing Times' reported that the city's toilets have improved greatly in recent years, especially those for women.

The inventor of the television remote control has passed away at the age of 96. The Associated Press news agency reported that Eugene J. Polley died of natural causes on Sunday. His creation is one of today's most commonly used and ubiquitous devices. Mr Polley worked as an engineer for a company called Zenith, now part of Korea's LG Electronics. He introduced his gun-shaped remote control, called the Flash-Matic, in 1955. It was one of 18 patents he owned. The Flash-Matic used light to turn the TV on and off, adjust the volume and change channels. His invention was followed up five years later by fellow Zenith engineer Robert Adler, who used ultrasound instead of light. Today's remote controls use infrared light.

Polley worked for Zenith for 47 years and held some top technology posts. In 1997, the USA's National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences honoured him by awarding him with an Emmy Award for 'Pioneering Development of Wireless Remote Controls for Consumer Television.' Polley's invention is something we all take for granted nowadays. Generations of people have grown up not knowing that before remote controls, people actually had to leave the sofa and push a button or turn a dial to change their TV settings. Today we use remotes for everything from adjusting the brightness of lights to changing songs on our iPods to opening the garage door from 30 metres. Life would be quite different without this handy gadget.