technics

Should incest-warning app be a Facebook service?

Meeting someone in a club or a bar -- or even a church -- has its dangers.

You don't know who they really are. You don't know what they're like in a bad mood, as opposed to a bed mood. And you have no idea if they're really your cousin.

Such dilemmas have struck all those who are seeking love, or merely the comfort of warm, fragrant skin on a chilly Wednesday night.

Some extreme intellectuals in Iceland have decided to assist society's thrust toward safer human interaction.

They have created IslendingaApp, an app that gives you fair warning if the target of your pupillary expansion is, in fact, a close relative.… Read more

Alicia Keys gives PowerPoint presentation to BlackBerry

It would be easy to think that no one, no one was buying BlackBerrys right now.

Somehow, the brand -- at least in the U.S. -- appears to be enduring a soporific phase. Why, only the other day, some highly unreliable research suggested that it was the phone that people least wanted to buy.

BlackBerry, though, believes bigger and brighter days are ahead. Recently, it hired Alicia Keys as its creative director.

Some pointed out, to BlackBerry's discomfort, that Keys was an iPhone user with an iOS app.

Just as that information reverberated, Keys was seen tweeting from … Read more

Facebook status change reveals new husband has old wife

Not all marriages end in paradise.

Sometimes, they dissolve into purgatory or even worse.

Sometimes, though, you can choose a partner who very quickly becomes someone entirely different. A glutton, for example. Or a bigamist.

A woman in Australia recently married the love of her life and became Mrs. Keyet. Excited that she was now Mrs. Keyet, she changed her relationship status to "married."

She might have wished she'd changed it to "harried."

For no sooner did she ask her most important friends to share in her joy than she received a Facebook message: "… Read more

Epicurious 'honors' Boston on Twitter: Eat cranberry scones!

I had a friend running in the Boston Marathon yesterday. Her husband was waiting for her at the finish. When I found out they were both safe, I felt relieved, but still numb.

Others in Boston weren't so fortunate as my friends. They lost so much in such a senseless, awful manner.

Many onlookers around the world went to the natural social place to express themselves: Twitter. Could they add anything? Doubtful. Could they make anything better? Probably not, other than to offer their respect for and solidarity with those who so needlessly suffered and those who risked their … Read more

Ignore your dull family, says new Facebook Home ad

You know those self-centered, self-regarding people who just have to look at their cell phones during dinner?

Facebook loves them. Facebook admires them. Facebook wants to promote them.

This thrust toward spiritual progress is the company's latest ad for Facebook Home, its attempt to turn your Android into something from Redmond.

In one recent ad, we saw Mark Zuckerberg's loyal troops ignore his dull corporate ra-ra in favor of a screeching goat.

Now, we can see a young woman ignoring her family.

Oh, all families are awful, aren't they?

They insist on imposing emotional control upon you. … Read more

How Facebook and Twitter mess with DUI checkpoints

The police are sometimes accused of linear thinking, especially when it comes to DUI checkpoints.

They set them up on Friday and Saturday nights. They redouble their efforts on New Year's Eve.

Perhaps the finest example would was one police force in the wine country of Northern California that decided to put a DUI checkpoint at the bottom of a winery's driveway. Yes, on barrel-tasting day.

The police now have a stronger enemy in the people -- the people who are using social media to warn others that this particular Friday or Saturday night has been selected for … Read more

'The Matrix' is back (in your hospital)

So you're in the hospital. You want a reassuring environment. You want everything to go well.

But who's that man in the dark suit? The one with the shades. The one with the very suspicious face and accent.

Why, it's Agent Smith. The very same Agent Smith who contributed to making "The Matrix" something of a cult classic.

The very same Agent Smith who can occupy your body, or a version of it. How might this affect your surgery?

Please try not to worry. For the moment, this is just an ad for GE software. … Read more

Bad ads are ruining our (sex) lives, say Americans

Have you ever thought how pop-up ads really work on you?

I'm not looking for a rational answer. I am, as usual, trying to explore your feelings.

You see, things can affect us in insidious ways, so much so that we don't realize what we are becoming, until we have irrevocably become it.

Analytics company (1-1 consumer lifestyle predictive analytics company, to be precise) InsightsOne decided they had to know how ads were affecting Americans. In a deeper sense, you understand. So it commissioned Harris Interactive to probe, delve, and elicit.

The results are not an advertisement for … Read more

Soft-porn TV star refuses to wear electronic tag, says career-threatening

I have never presented a pornographic show on television, but I imagine it's quite stressful.

The normal scrutiny afforded TV personalities is surely doubled when your show has carnality at its core.

It is, then, understandable why a 19-year-old adult TV presenter, Sophie Dalzell, was mortified on being told by a judge that she must wear an electronic tag on her ankle.… Read more