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Alien sex tapes, robot rape and the evolution of consent
A little over a week ago Engadget's EIC and I had dinner with a couple of friends at a Chinatown Thai restaurant in L.A. As I sipped on a Singha Slurpee, our dinner companions, Claire Evans and Jona Bechtolt of the band Yacht, gave us an off-the-record rundown of a bizarre and twisted plan for the release of their next single, I Wanna Fuck You Till I'm Dead. They'd created a One Night in Paris-style sex tape spoof with a twist: Instead of peeling off their clothes, the couple would peel back their flesh to reveal hypersexualized alien bodies.
The curious sext lives of chatbots
ELIZA is old enough to be my mother, but that didn't stop me from trying to have sex with her. NSFW Warning: This story may contain links to and descriptions or images of explicit sexual acts.
UK prosecutors say posting revenge porn can lead to 14 years in prison
In a bid to crack down on the sharing of "revenge porn," UK prosecutors have warned that the most severe cases can come with a 14-year spell behind bars. According to new guidance issued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), explicit images that are sent to force victims into sexual activity or humiliate a former partner can break sex offense laws (and possibly even child protection regulations), allowing prosecutors to seek longer sentences for offenders. In the past, many cases were tried under obscenity laws, which come with softer punishments and also need to meet a "public interest threshold" that gauges the impact of the offense.
Rovio joins MTV's anti-bullying campaign, rewards participation with Angry Birds Space level
Angry Birds is, at its core, a game about being bullied and then exploding those bullies, so it makes sense that Rovio would join MTV's "A Thin Line" campaign. Discouraging "digital disrespect," "cruelty" and "sexting," among other things, A Thin Line will incentivize active community involvement by rewarding positive social actions with an exclusive Angry Birds Space level.It works like this: Once Angry Birds Space launches on March 22, players that post a "positive action" on MTV's Draw Your Line site will be given a hint that leads them to a secret "Golden Egg" level in Space. A "positive action" can be something as simple as changing your email password to protect your identity, or as complex as hosting an anti-abuse event/rally. The whole site works on the honor system, though, so most positive actions will probably be lies, concocted solely to obtain the game's secret level.
'Retweet,' 'sexting' added to Oxford English Dictionary, alongside words that are actually words
Every so often, Chuzzlewitt, Figglesworth and the rest of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary's Council of Elders gather around a stone in Puddingshire, where they come up with ways to modernize the English language. New words are added, archaic ones are cut, goats are sacrificed. It's all very messy -- especially when internet lingo gets involved, as is so often the case. It's no different this year, with the latest class of inductees including words like "retweet," "sexting," and "cyberbullying." Also making the cut is "woot" (which is apparently spelled without zeroes) and "surveil," which was added primarily as a reflection of today's privacy-conscious society. In fact, the dictionary's purveyors say they make their decisions based not on intuition or cage match results, but on cultural ubiquity, which they gauge using a database of more than two billion words culled from contemporary sites. So if you're wondering why words like "jeggings" and "mankini" are now part of the English tome, you have only the internet to blame.
Apple thinks of the children, patents parent-controlled text communication
US patent 7814163 has been granted to Apple under the title "Text-based communication control for personal communication device." It describes the ability to control content sent and received from an "administered device" as defined by a parental control application. If objectionable content is detected based on a table of words stored locally on the device, the content can either be removed or the message blocked entirely. It can also enforce a designated language for children who, for example, are required to practice a foreign language. Note that the controlled content is limited to text, so it won't stop naughty Kin owners from foolish behavior, like, well, buying a Kin.
Microsoft changes naughty 'sexting' Kin ad, camera to be used for clothed chests only
As a card-carrying member of the Upload Generation, your Kin is about a lot of things: chilling with your peeps and BFFs, taking pictures and video of all of life's most awesome moments, keeping tabs on your MySpace pals, and documenting the fascinating story of your nipples without a pesky American Apparel V-neck getting in the way. Or wait... maybe not? Microsoft has just pulled a Kin ad briefly featuring a young gentleman snapping shots of his PG-rated parts underneath his t-shirt in response to Consumer Reports' concerns that the move encourages "sexting" -- a growing problem amongst the world's technologically-savvy (and hormone-riddled) youth -- saying that it "takes the issue of sexting very seriously and it was never our intent to promote it in any way." It looks like Microsoft has kept the commercial around on the Kin site and just removed the offending portion -- it was only about a second long -- so hanging out in underground speakeasies with fake hipsters is still okay, apparently. Follow the break for the original, unedited video.