Culture

The question of whether Craigslist is liable for the prostitution ads that can be found on the site appears to have been answered.

U.S. District Judge John Grady on Tuesday tossed out a civil complaint, filed in March by the sheriff of Illinois' Cook County, which accused Craigslist of being a public nuisance and of violating federal, state and local prostitution laws. Sheriff Tom Dart even alleged in his lawsuit that Craigslist "solicits for a prostitute...by arranging meetings of persons for purposes of prostitution."

If calling Craigslist a pimp seems a stretch, well, that's how … Read more

Speaking of the eclipse, an inventor named David Kent Jones wants to use robots to turn the Earth's only natural satellite into a giant ad.

Jones' scheme is to use lunar robots to plow moon dust into "logos, domains [sic] names, memorials or even portraits...You can even carve your initials in a heart to impress your sweetheart."

Imagine looking up and seeing a Nike swoosh among the stars.

A Salt Lake City company called Moon Publicity says its Shadow Shaping Technology would involve robots pushing the dust into furrows to create shadows that form images when … Read more

Welcome to Far-flung Tech, an exploration of far-out and faraway technology!

All eyes were on the stunning solar eclipse this week, but the Japanese were mesmerized by a new star on the catwalk.

Fashion designer Yumi Katsura showed her latest wedding dresses in Osaka including a gown sported by the government's newly developed "cybernetic human," the HRP-4C, which Crave first told you about in March.

4C slowly shimmied down the 10-meter catwalk to the beat of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." She turned to look at attendees and said, "I've put on a wedding dress for the first time. I'm very happy today to wear this dress by Yumi Katsura."

At a photo op later on, the blushing bride stood next to Katsura and blinked at photographers snapping her picture. Check it out in the video below.

Organizers were billing the event as the first of its kind in the world, and I can't recall another example of a humanoid robot showing off wedding apparel in a fashion show.

It also demonstrated how the Japanese continue to nurture a playful spirit in their approach to robotics. While other countries are building Terminator-style killing machines, Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) created 4C to work in the "entertainment industry." Perhaps a dubious use of funds by a deeply indebted state, the project was announced with the admission that "(1) robots walking on two feet only have little commercial value, (2) the unit price is very high, and (3) if it falls, it may be seriously damaged." … Read more

Google faces criminal charges because of a video posted on the company's Italian Web site showing a teenager with Down syndrome being taunted by classmates in a Turin school.

The United Kingdom's TimesOnline reports that the clip, which lasts for 191 seconds, "showed the youths making fun of the teenager before hitting him over the head with a box of tissues."

The video got posted in 2006 but was subsequently removed after its existence become known.

A representative for Google Italy said the company was disappointed with the decision, which follows a two-year investigation by Italian … Read more

"I can't remember a debate in which the only memorable moment was the audience's heckling of a moderator."

That's the opening line of Frank Rich's eminently entertaining essay in Sunday's New York Times on the recent Clinton-Obama debate.

Rich obviously missed the ruckus over Sarah Lacy's ill-fated interview of Mark Zuckerberg last month at the South by Southwest conference. That episode was well-chronicled elsewhere. Suffice it to say that Lacy wasn't at her best that evening and a crowd of nerds jumped ugly when their patience ran out. What followed was … Read more

Everyone remembers their first computer. Well mine was a PCjr and I don't care how history remembers it. The piece of junk stole my heart.

I wouldn't push the analogy too hard, but your first computer's a lot like your first love in one respect: years later, the memory does not fade with the passing of the seasons.

So it was that I was reading Jonathan Zittrain's excellent new book, The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It (more about that in a future post), when I paged across his disquisition on the early PC … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--It turns out al-Qaida's leader and his cohorts aren't the biggest threat to our cybersecurity. You are.

Six years ago, Osama bin Laden represented the nightmare scenario for the computer security establishment. But more immediate cyberdangers lurk on the horizon. Experts attending the RSA conference that began here today say it's you--Mr. & Mrs. Computer User--who keep goofing up.

In fact, they contend, the future of cybersecurity hinges less on a latter-day version of spy-versus-spy against shadowy terror groups than on a more serious effort to instill best practices. Listening to their heeding was something akin … Read more

On the eve of the RSA security conference, there's a showdown in the offing between "Old Europe" and U.S. search operators. Earlier Monday word leaked about a European regulatory plan to press search engine providers to dump personal search data after six months.

Barring the unforeseen, it's likely the European Commission will look kindly upon the plan. This would be quite a big deal, setting the stage for a continent-wide challenge to the way big search engine companies set procedures handling log deletion and browser cookies.

Until now, privacy advocates haven't gotten very far … Read more

After the derision that greeted The New York Times' blogging-will-kill-you story on Sunday, I'm probably not going to do much for the reputation of the mainstream media with hard-core bloggers. So it goes.

Out of curiosity, I drew up a list of 55 technology journalists to find out how many use Twitter, arguably one of the most important social-media technologies on the scene. I included names of some online reporters--including colleagues from CNET as well as TechCrunch--but in the main, the list is comprised of people employed by A-list newspapers and periodicals.

I don't pretend to have come … Read more