dates

Facebook date forces woman to be getaway driver

These days, if you don't meet your date online, there must be something a little wrong with you.

There is a small cabal of humans, however, who are still uncertain as to whether someone you meet on, say, Facebook, mightn't be married. Or merely a hardened criminal.

I mention this dilemma because of the tale of 23-year-old Leah Gibbs, from Rhondda, South Wales.

The way The Daily Mail presents it, Gibbs met Adam Minton on Facebook and agreed to be his date. Her hope was that they would spend their first encounter watching a DVD at Minton's … Read more

The 404 894: Where we're touched by a tablet (podcast)

Samsclub.com finally delivered my HP TouchPad yesterday, and I can already feel the drops of regret bubbling up--listen to today's episode of The 404 Podcast before you invest in HP's next round of $99 tablets.

It's not all complaints, though--we'll also tell you what to expect from HP in the coming months, discuss the latest news in the Dept. of Justice vs. AT&T ruling, and wag our collective finger at Gawker for its unapologetic nerd-baiting.

The 404 Digest for Episode 894

HP to bring back TouchPad for last production run. Justice Department to block AT&T's T-Mobile deal. My brief OkCupid affair with a world champion Magic: The Gathering player.

Episode 894 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Woman settles in Match.com sexual assault lawsuit

A woman who sued Match.com claiming she was sexually assaulted on a date has settled her lawsuit after seeing proof that the site now screens its members for sexual predators, according to the Associated Press.

Carole Markin had sued the online dating site in April following the reported assault after learning that her date had previously been convicted of sexual battery. Rather than seeking financial damages, Markin's lawsuit asked that Match.com start reviewing its membership for signs of sexual predators.

Shortly after the suit was filed, the dating service announced a new policy whereby it would check its members against a national sex offenders registry. … Read more

First dates from hell exposed in 140 characters

Now that people rely on the Internet for love (I saw a Match.com commercial claiming one in five relationships starts online), it's only natural they would return to the Internet to recount the dates that didn't end in magic. A new Twitter page called First Date Hell, and its accompanying aggregator, Crapdate.com, give serial daters a chance to dish their first-date horror stories in 140 characters or fewer, and some of them are pretty bad.

Rhodri Marsden started Crapdate.com after relaying first-date stories back and forth with friends at a local pub. His first post about one particularly long uncomfortable silence inspired some his 17,000 Twitter followers to reply with their own real-life nightmares, like this one from @BibiLynch, whose first date took her to a Laundromat, then proceeded to pay-phone ring his dad to describe her physical assets in agonizing detail.… Read more

Zelda: Skyward Sword to arrive November 20

The Nintendo Wii launched with a Zelda game and now it looks like it will also go out with one, too. Call it the last Wii game you'll ever buy, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will finally release in North America on November 20. Interestingly enough, the time in between the two Zelda games spans the entire life cycle of the Wii, so it's only fitting the console's last major piece of software be another adventure featuring our little green hero from Hyrule.

We've been critical of Nintendo for seemingly leaving the Wii hanging in terms of software support, but if our time with Skyward Sword at E3 2011 is any indication of the game's quality, we're highly optimistic about the final product. … Read more

Device serves date-rape drug detection on the rocks

You may be wise enough not to leave your drink unattended if you go to bars or campus parties, but scientists in Israel can still help you ensure you don't get a nasty surprise in your mojito.

Fernando Patolsky and Michael Ioffe of Tel Aviv University's school of chemistry say they've developed a sensor that can tell you in real time whether your drink has been spiked with common date-rape drugs.

The sensor, which looks like a straw or swizzle stick, works by sucking up a small sample of the drink and mixing it with a testing solution that causes the stick to change color if drugs are present. A red light also goes on, so it can be used in the dark.

"The drug itself is reacting with this chemical formulation and the previously clear formula becomes dirty and when the light shines it you can detect it," Ioffe told AFP recently. "You don't have to do anything but dip it in your drink." … Read more

iPhone 5 to launch in early September, report says

Hang on to your hats, because there's another rumored release date for Apple's next-generation iPhone.

The latest comes from the China Times (translation), which says that Apple plans to produce 4 million units of the device following a production run of 400,000 test units. That's all to ready the device for a release in the second week of September.

Other tidbits from the report, which was picked up this morning by Macrumors, include Apple purportedly working to ready another version of the iPad to bring to market "before Thanksgiving." That would give Apple a late-year product launch that--as the last two iPad launches have proven--would make for a tough-to-get gadget during the frenzied holiday shopping season.

The China Times report has some weight in terms of timing. Apple has made a habit of holding its annual iPod-focused music event in September, usually during that first or second week of the month. Apple has also promised to release iOS 5 in "the fall," which officially begins a few weeks later. … Read more

White House taps developers to fight date violence

The White House hopes the application-developer community will answer its call for help in preventing sexual assault and dating violence.

Vice President Joe Biden and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced such a technology challenge to the development community today. Both have been advocates for the prevention of sexual assault and dating violence among young adults.

The challenge is part of the broader use of technology by the White House to get the public involved with larger government issues. White House Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra said there are 80 such challenges on the Web site Challenge.gov, … Read more

Rumor: iPhone 5 announcement, availability in August

Forget the rumors of an iPhone 4S coming this fall. In fact, you may be able to forget an iPhone 4S entirely. Word on the street from Boy Genius Report is that the iPhone 5 is coming.

Apple has been rumored to be testing iPhone 4 (or 4S) models for T-Mobile and Sprint lately, causing many to conjecture that an iPhone 4S release this fall is entirely possible (with a full iPhone 5 release in January). BGR, however, "has independently confirmed that the next-generation iPhone will not merely be an upgraded iPhone 4 as had been previously rumored."… Read more

Dating site for the gorgeous expels 30,000 Shreks?

Few of us have been given the tools to make us instantly beautiful. Not even visits to the finest surgeons in LA seem to do the trick.

We deal with our imperfections. However, it appears that 30,000 who tried to gain access to BeautifulPeople.com, a dating site for the supremely pretty, are having extreme difficulty dealing with rejection.

You might remember this site. Two years ago, it declared that its standards were strict. It declared that British people were, in general, on the less blessed side of pulchritude.

But now the Guardian reports that Beautiful People has turned … Read more