Ajax Girl

Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life, may be extending their crackdown on “Broadly Offensive” behavior to Bestiality, following attempts to remove virtual pedophilia (or Age-Play) from Second Life in March.

The Second Life Herald (NSFW) goes on to ask whether consenting adults dressing up like animals and partaking in virtual sex with each other or with human shaped avatars (virtual bestiality) constitutes broadly offensive behavior.

“Furries” have a long history in Second Life, and new users are presented with the option of taking an animal form when first setting up their avatars.

Second Life fans will argue that sex-based play in Second Life only makes up a small portion of Second Life, but it remains a popular pursuit; the popular destination lists for Second Life regularly feature nightclubs and dedicated sex spots (or as is sometimes the case, nightclubs that are sex spots as well).

The arguments for and against this sort of behavior can and does result in heated debate; on one hand what consenting adults do virtually with one and other should be strictly up to them, on the other hand these acts aren’t being done in complete privacy but in a virtual world were others may be exposed to it.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/136101998/

For those of us who pay attention to these things, the recent rise in SimplyHired’s traffic on Compete and Alexa was noteworthy. Since April, both services show a dramatic rise in traffic - see chart to right, click for larger view). And more importantly, they show SimplyHired overtaking competitor Indeed, even though they have historically trailed them in reach and traffic.

There’s a problem though: Comscore shows no such increase in traffic - Indeed is still far ahead of Simply Hired in terms of unique visitors. The Comscore data is shown at the bottom of this post.

Here’s what the source of the discrepancy might be: We have heard that Simply Hired may have started buying a very large number of “pop-under” advertisements from WhenU. Comscore says that they filter this “push” traffic out of their stats. I suspect Alexa and Compete do not.

WhenU is regarded by many to be nothing more than malware, and users who’ve had it infect their machine spend a lot of time trying to get it removed. There are a number of forum threads where people try to help others remove it.

So, the question is, why is Simply Hired associating themselves with WhenU? Is the only purpose of the ads to drive Simply Hired higher in the rankings of some of the metrics services? I have an email into their PR group, and await an answer.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/136081479/

The One Laptop Per Child initiative has reached new heights by delivering internet porn to third world children.

According to a report Thursday from the official News Agency of Nigeria, laptops in a primary school in Abuja “have gone awry as the pupils freely browse adult sites with explicit sexual materials.”

It’s heart warming to know that the efforts of the well meaning folks behind the OLPC project are delivering real results on the ground; providing the same opportunities for teenage boys to access internet porn no matter how impoverished they are or where they live.

The party however will be short lived; a representative of the One Laptop Per Child group was reported saying that the OLPC computers would now be fitted with porn filters.

(via Teleread)

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/135946579/

An interesting story came across my desk today - A “news” site called Axcess News reported that President Bush was undergoing a colonoscopy, leaving Vice President Cheney in charge of the United States for the duration of the procedure.

The article, which was the top story on Google news briefly yesterday, had the unfortunate title “Bush butt probed, Cheney in charge” and began with “A shudder could be felt across Capitol Hill Friday after news came out that President Bush would be having his butt checked out…”

A quick search of Google News shows the story is still indexed. Perhaps Google will now be rethinking whether Axcess News should remain in the Google News index?

Axcess News, by the way, is a member of the esteemed Online News Association, which purports to be a serious group of online news sites. The president of the ONA is Kinsey Wilson, the Executive Editor of USAToday.com.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/135909876/

Google has announced the acquisition of Clayton, Missouri based ImageAmerica, a company that builds high-resolution cameras for the collection of aerial imagery.

ImageAmerica has previously provided images for Google Maps and Earth, including high-resolution black and white imagery of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

Stephen Chau, Project Manager of Google Maps and Earth said in a statement that Google was excited “about how ImageAmerica’s technology will contribute to [Google’s] mapping services down the road.”

The acquisition price was not disclosed.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/135891531/

Interactive TV has been around for a while in various forms ranging from the SMS voting driving American Idol, to the Finnish choose-you-own-adventure drama Accidental Lovers. Interactive TV’s paradigm argues for pushing PC functionality on the TV instead of TV functionality on your PC. Mark Cuban has opined at length on the shift.

A lifetime ago, in the mid 90’s, the first generation of interactive television focused on using a peripheral device to enhance your TV stream. Web TV, one of the first examples, wanted to splice together the internet with your TV through a set top box. After acquisition, it later became MSN TV.

The next crop of interactive TV offerings is aiming to add the same interactivity, but without requiring consumers to invest in another piece of hardware. ICTV is adding interactive functionality by using the cable box or DVR box you already own. Compared to other attempts, ICTV uses a dumb device strategy. Your cable box just needs to send keystrokes to their servers through your cable operator. The keystrokes tell ICTV how to render the Mpeg 2 stream going to your TV. It will look like a TV stream, but act like an interactive application, similar to the DVD menus people are familiar with. More on the tech here.

For instance, you can use your controller to browse through archived TV content on branded channels, set up personalized video feeds, and get web like interactivity. You’ll get this web-like functionality because ICTV is using web standards to do it, enabling publishers to even splice content from their website into the feed. This openness is supposed to make it more flexible than the closed system on demand programs use to deliver a level of interactivity. Networks will be able to have greater control over advertisements and easily create deeper content. However, it requires buy-in from the very networks developing these offerings.

ICTV is currently deployed in a series of international tests. They have 900,000 subscribers online through PCCW, Hong Kong’s television provider. They are also testing with 100,000 Comcast subscribers in Texas.

Interactive television was an easier sell in the days before broadband hit its stride, but may still have a roll in closing the gap between the internet and the TV. Recent studies have shown the two platforms aren’t antagonistic. Neilsen found that while 63% of broadband internet users watched broadband video online, it actually had a positive effect on TV viewership. IPTV may be growing up on PCs and the XBox, but TVs aren’t going away any time soon.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/135877747/

Here’s an interesting new venture by Myspace: they’ve partnered with Virgin Comics to create Coalition Comix. Mike Carey, a veteran comic book writer, will guide the process of creating an entirely new comic on the site. And they are promising to take user ideas and votes to guide the story.

The guy running the show is Mike Carey, a former accountant who’s written for a bunch of popular comics including Batman, X-Men, Ultimate Fantasic Four and others.

This sounds like more of a gimmick than anything - good creative works are rarely the product of groups because the really radical stuff gets washed out by the majority. If you want to watch it all unfold, check back on the site on August 2 when it launches.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/135871255/

Information Architects have released their Web Trend Map for 2007, a subway map of the 200 most successful websites on the web, ordered by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective. In theory it demonstrates the relationship between various sites and ideas, with a strong focus on Web 2.0.

I’ve always found these sorts of things clever, in a geeky sort of way, but it’s not recommended that you try reading this with a hangover or whilst on certain prescription medications. Click the image for a larger version or click here for the pdf version.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/135869310/