Similar to the search engine research conducted on SWBU last month to out a viral marketing campaign connected with PayPerPost, Waxy.org uncovered a social media spamming campaign for The Times (UK).

"Since 2004, The Times retained the established SEO consulting firm Sitelynx to handle their search engine marketing. Working on behalf of The Times, a Sitelynx employee posted thousands of links to community and social news websites, including Mahalo, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Metafilter, Yahoo! Answers, Ma.gnolia, and Netscape's Propeller. His actions were done without any disclosure of his affiliation to Sitelynx or The Times and were, in some cases, posted under the assumed identity of his wife."

Waxy goes on to include a breakdown of all the found accounts and number of links dropped on each. Needless to say, link spammers should learn that the possibility of being outed on blogs for poor conduct will result higher SEO rankings with negative content than all their hours of making new accounts.

[Thx, Tantek!]

Invading Japan for further analysis, a swarm of 200 robots are taking to the skies. In preparation for forecasting pollen levels, Weathernews, Inc. is sending out what looks like enlarged ping pong balls with embedded LEDs.

"[They] weigh 1 kilogram (2.2 lbs) and measure 30 centimeters (1 ft) across, consist of a monitoring unit housed in a spherical styrofoam shell. A pair of eyes glow 5 different colors — white, blue, green, red and purple — to indicate the level of Japanese cedar and cypress pollen in the air."

Called Pollen Robots, the spherical bots monitor and provide up-to-the-minute pollen reports and maps online.

This is perhaps on the side of trying too hard, but someone took the time to edit their way through a variety of Star Trek episodes for anything resembling an orgasm. The Trekkie YouTube clip features the numerous seasons and character climaxes. Cheesy? Definitely. Worth your time? Questionable. [via]

A new mobile concept called P-Per offers a reach-around to the iPhone-famous touchscreen. By using minimal parts, the potential phone offers sustainability.

"The design consists of just 4 layers, a printed circuit board, extruded polycarbonate, recycled titanium, and a wrap around flexible haptic LED touchscreen."

Textually says the design would satiate tech nerds, but we have to politely disagree. The mobile industry should be tapping into those that feel left out from the need for breakable screens and texting typos. Though we may be trading style for bulk, tactile QWERTY keyboards are a must for the true "tech nerds" who text under the table.

InteracItive LED kit in Evil Mad Scientist Auxiliary photo pool. [via]

Each week, Ariel Waldman serves a tasting of the latest in sex and tech.

Thermal Bras and Panties Could Boost Your Mobile Phone Battery
A new pair of underwear could use your body heat to charge your batteries. The prospect of using nanowires or microspopic strands of silicone has researchers convinced this may be the future of fashion. "This discovery could lead to special clothing that could produce electrical current for batteries in cells and handheld computers," reports Green Daily. While still a concept, the idea of electricity-producing lingerie is pretty hot.
Previously: Solar swimsuits power up bikini babes

Sensual Intelligence Possibly More Sci-Fi Than AI
Like using your left hand, sex toys are now trying to mimic a foreign feeling by the use of an artificial "mind". Dubbed "Sensual Intelligence", a new down-there-device called SaSi uses a positive or negative button for the user to select what does and doesn't feel good. The device learns your preferences, but also apparently pushes your boundaries on occasion as well. Regina Lynn of Wired's Sex Drive column claims, "...I thought everyone would be clamoring for one, because frankly it's the closest thing to cunnilingus you can get from a robot."

Sex::Tech Starts Today
The Sex::Tech Conference starts today in San Francisco, focusing on youth education. With speakers such as Deb Levine, Anastasia Goldstein, and Nikol Hasler, the event is sure to draw in those in the know. Some of the sessions today covered "OMG!STDs: The New Frontier of Text Messaging for Sexual Health", "Integrating Technology Into Sexual Health Programs", and "Wired for Sex: Connecting People in the 2.0 Sexuality".

Dubbed Street Wars, this new form of street graffiti uses glow sticks and creative mods on street signage. Known for "playful reappropriation of urban elements in public settings", SpY was the force behind the project. The creator's site is currently down (as of 4am PT), but will hopefully be back up to provide more details.

Each week, Ariel Waldman serves a tasting of the latest in sex and tech.

Kiss-Me Meter Measures Make-Out-Worthiness
Catching up on the CES craziness from last week, we're surprised this one didn't make it into Engadget's Crapgadget edition. The Kiss-me Meter is designed to measure the make-out-worthiness of your breath and thus advise on whether you should make a move or start gargling some serious mouth wash. By blowing into the gizmo, an LED indicator shows where you stand. If we saw someone using this, we would make sure we stood far away.

OhMiBod Compatible With iPhone, No Word On Macbook Air
OhMiBod should've held off from announcements for another week, as only a few days ago it was boasting iPhone compatibility. No word yet on if the line of vibrators plans to sync up with the new Macbook Air. We're guessing that the serious lack in audio quality in the Macbook Air may make for some not-so-hot vibrations.

Unlimited HD Porn That Doesn't Hit Your Wallet
Another CES find that aimed to target those who had wandered over from AVN was FyreTV. FyreTV is a black box of porn that delivers a punch. With an ethernet connection, the black box delivers around 20,000 different porn titles. The service costs about $10 a month, which is fairly cheap, but doesn't compare to the fact that you can still get a lot for free. Unfortunately, we wouldn't give it a great rating simply for the fact that it's streaming, rather than stored. Seeing a buffering notice in the middle of a scene may make for an instant FAIL.

It's been covered before on Tuesday Tasting - the saturation of subway gropers in Japan. Not wanting to be lumped in with the lot of pervy men, a new accessory helps define where non-wandering hands are.

"On super crowded trains, standing commuters quickly run out of stationary rings to hold on to, and have nowhere to put their hands. That's probably what inspired gropers to fondle in the first place, but it's also a looming dilemma for non-perverts as to where they can put their hands in order not to be mistaken for one."

While the idea of men holding onto rings to proclaim their non-perv status may be laughable, the product apparently sold out within a very short time frame.

With an uber-geeky name like Export to World, you know their products have to be virtually awesome and useless at the same time. The concept coverts virtual Second Life objects into tangible elements with the use of paper. Like IKEA, all the objects can be constructed with simple scissors and glue. A Flickr album helps give some added context to the conversion.

Sushi + tush = pervy form of Onigiri

[via (nsfw)]

Perhaps the only thing more pervasive than flashing screens (or lack there of) at CES is advertising. Engadget points to what they found to be the best and the worst ads at CES this year. The team doesn't give a blow-by-blow review of each ad, but we can only imagine the snickering that took place behind the camera. What are your best/worst picks from the ad album?

RFID technology continues to merge into a variety of miraculous experiments around the globe. The latest concept uses RFID tags to communicate to washing and drying machines how individual articles of clothing should be treated. The objective is to avoid laundry dilemmas. Named ClothTAG, the concept could be cute, but may also create an entire new generation of overly-tech-dependent hipsters.

Created by Ogilvy out of Frankfurt, this series of ads aims to nudge the naughty-minded into buying an otherwise innocent product. The ads were produced for Globus Supermarket in Germany. With tag lines like "satisfy your appetite", the play on imagery is pleasurable until you find yourself wanting to fondle mangos and feel up bananas.

While many of us tech-fetishists can't take our eyes off of the saturated-with-shiny CES floors, others have alternatives that catch their glance. The infamous I4U News (the ones that bring you your monthly girl-on-gadget moments) are taking their reporting to the array of oh-so-predictable booth babes. These are the lovely ladies that somehow got lost on the way to the AVN expo next door. Thankfully, gaggles of geeks are around to ogle and escort them around gadgets accordingly.

The title doesn't have too much of a ring to it, but guitar gamers everywhere are already singing praises for the new Rock Band plus Guitar Hero mashup controller. Finally, one controller to rule toggling between your two favorite ways of rocking out.

"Rather than wait for Harmonix and Activision to sort out the whole Rock Band/Guitar Hero/PS3 guitar incompatability fiasco, [Nyko has] gone ahead and released their own guitar, one that avoids the whole mess and gives PS3 owners a single peripheral that'll work on both games."

Called the Front Man, the controller is set to rock your world in March.

Each week, Ariel Waldman serves a tasting of the latest in sex and tech.

Non-Booth-Babe Babes Battle for CES Floor Space
Apparently I won the best summary of the CES news for twittering “CES effectively splooged all over my Google Reader" this week. Thankfully, Gizmodo gives something for us to effectively splooge over: non-booth-babe babes at this year's CES. Captured in pixels, "Videographer Richard Blakeley and noted letch Nick McGlynn went out and snapped some pics of some of the real babes of CES". The Gawker site of course failed to mention their competition: the geek girl of CES, Veronica Belmont.

Bed Speakers Make Your Lonely Bed into a Boombox
A new "technology" aims to drown out the sound of your sobbing in a lonely bed with dropping a few beats. The Slip Sonic Impact's BM101 speaker panel slips between your mattress and box spring to help vibrate your emptiness away without the need for a dishwasher afterwards. Turning your box spring into a boombox, the system will run you about $200-$400. Gadget Lab reports that in addition to basement dwellers, they'll be marketing the product to pregnant women.

Luxury Intimate Toys Attempt to be Inoffensive
Adult toys take many shapes and forms. Trying to make sex with yourself a little more stylish, the B3 collection designed sleek and less-than-obvious shapes for sensual fun. From the Tuyo orb to the Onya pill, the toys are meant to pleasure the eyes as much as all the other enjoyable places.

Molded into classic pin-ups, six supermodels are gracing some of Louis Vuitton's latest purse promotions. From Claudia Schiffer to Naomi Campbell, the hair is big and the legs are definitely long. The revisit to retro was photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggot. We could leave LV's Spring Summer 2008 collection behind, but we'd gladly get on the waiting list for some pin-up-esque lingerie.

Analog graffiti may be on its way out, as a new street artist does digital to make their message. Known as "The Decapitator", the artist takes advertisements and obviously enough, decapitates the main characters that appear in them. With no words and subtle changes, this graffiti style is more along the lines of last year's Broken Link as opposed to the infamous and much-hated "The Splasher". Thankfully, "The Decapitator" keeps to his digital stance by maintaining a Flickr account.

Vertically engineered, an interactive project called "Electric MoOns" produces a massive 10x10 3D physical display. The display uses 100 white balloons in a dark room to create the illusion. From Make:, "When music is played, the balloons synchronize their movements and their interiors are illuminated by dimmable super-bright LEDs". A screen-based UI allows for a user to tweak the movement and lighting of each balloon.