While those in London can use SMS to actually find a lavatory, folks passing through Western Finland will be required to bust out their handset in order to relieve themselves in select public restrooms. In an attempt to curb vandalism, the Finnish Road Administration has implemented a system along Highway 1 which requires restroom visitors to text "Open" (in Finnish, of course) in order to let themselves in. The idea is that folks will be less likely to lose their mind and graffiti up the place knowing that their mobile number is (at least temporarily) on file, but it remains to be seen if uprooters will simply take their defacing ways elsewhere or actually excrete in peace.

[Via Switched]

If you've ever found yourself stuck in London with the insatiable urge to urinate in an alleyway, help is on the way. Believe it or not, a new SMS-based toilet finding service actually has the aforementioned predicament as a top priority to solve, and the Westminster City Council is hoping that people utilize the system to keep streets a bit cleaner. Cleverly dubbed SatLav, the technology enables individuals passing through London's West End to text the word "toilet" to 80097 in order to receive a (hopefully hasty) reply with details to get to the nearest public restroom. Unfortunately, the service will cost users £0.25 ($0.52) each time they use it, so we're a bit skeptical that alleyway urinators will happily cough up some coin rather than just sticking to old ways.

[Image courtesy of BBC]

So apparently NASA has agreed to purchase toilet technology from the Russian company RSC Energia for the tidy sum of $19 million, to be delivered to the ISS in 2008 in preparation for a crew upsizing from three to six members. The previous system required that urine tanks be transfered to cargo ships and burned up in the Earth's atmosphere, but the new toilets operate like a waste treatment center on Earth, collecting and reconstituting urine as drinking water -- an unpleasant concept for a number of our readers, but a welcome relief for thirsty astronauts. The toilets are similar to normal models, though they employ leg restraints and thigh bars to hold the "user" in place, and high-powered fans to suck, um... waste into the commode. The system will be installed on the American side of the station, while the Russian-side will remain as is, resulting in extremely long lines to use the "good" bathroom.

We've seen our fair share of strange and / or gimmicky products around here, but the Babykeeper by Mommysentials has to be one of the creepiest. This contraption allows you to hang your six to eighteen month old infant on the door of a public toilet stall while you, um, do your business. Now we're not questioning the safety of the device or the necessity of keeping an eye on your child at all times, but who in their right mind wants their little baby staring at them squatting over a dirty toilet, especially after they've dined at, say, Taco Bell. In the same way that its traumatizing for children to watch their parents engage in "adult activities" (or heaven forbid, be in the same bed), we can't imagine that it's psychologically healthy for Junior to get slung up on the back of a swinging door and be forced to watch Mommy heed nature's call every time they're out and about. The $60 Babykeeper may be the perfect solution for some, but we'll stick to the tried-and-true methods of either holding it in or paying an honest-looking stranger to act as temporary babysitter every once in awhile (this last parenting tip was brought to you by BloggingBaby).

[Via Pocket-lint and Babygadget]