kiss

Pucker up! Kissing machine rates your smooches

On a scale of 1 to 8, how are your kisses? You could check in with whomever you're smooching these days -- or you could consult the Kissing Evaluator.

The electronic contraption, built by a team of San Francisco makers, reacts to a couple's canoodles with LED lights and woob woob and bleb bleb noises (a method that's been officially certified by the International Association of Kissing Metrics).

The team built the whimsical device for Red Bull Creation, a national competition that challenges contestants to invent something creative around a piece of hardware -- and then display it in public. Red Bull sent this year's participants a "Turbull Encabulator" circuit board that it designed as a tool for making LED light art, along with RGB LED lights and instructions to "make something awesome." … Read more

Go Daddy posts top sales after airing model-kissing-geek ad

Apparently advertising really works. Well, at least if it contains a nerdy geek making out with a blonde model.

Web hosting company Go Daddy announced yesterday that it had its biggest Super Bowl sales day ever after its infamous ad aired on Sunday. The site got more new customers and overall sales than after any of its other Super Bowl campaigns.

"Attracting new customers is what advertising is all about," Go Daddy CEO Blake Irving said in a statement. "We set all-time Super Bowl Sunday records for mobile sales, Website Builders, website hosting and new customers." … Read more

The new PCs specially designed by women for women

It's odd how women are often lumped into one homogenous group.

You know, like men, wolves, or southerners.

We're supposed to believe that all women think alike, act alike, and, of course, emote alike.

Yet it's not as if women are generally seen to be using a different sort of PC from men. They tend to lug around the same equipment.

The vastly sensitive brains at Fujitsu have decided this prejudice must end. Which is why there is now the Floral Kiss.… Read more

Kissinger: Smooching robot for virtual make-out sessions

Kissinger wants to give you some lip. The robotic creation from Lovotics works in pairs so long-distance lovers can get in some lip-locks over the Internet.

Kissinger looks like a cross between a cow and a bunny. I know what you're thinking. That sounds super sexy! Well, you have to work with what you can get.

The bot sports some good-size lips. The idea is that you kiss away on your Kissinger and the touch-sensitive device sends the movements to another Kissinger far away. That Kissinger moves its own lips in response. … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1569: Find love on Skout and fall in love with Gene Simmons (all over again) (Podcast)

On today's Most Epic Buzz Out Loud Episode Ever, we interview the founders of Skout.com and find out there's an easier way to find love and friendship all around you than the way you have to do it in Sweden. Also, how Verizon is trying to murder the Galaxy Nexus and Google is letting it. Plus, David Lucatch (don't get his name wrong, take it from me) and Gene Simmons (yes, THAT Gene Simmons) join us to talk about the magic wand that is Ortsbo. We'd believe it even if Gene didn't say so.

Subscribe: iTunes (MP3) | iTunes (320x180) | iTunes (640x360)

RSS (MP3) | RSS (320x180) | RSS (640x360)… Read more

Web roots out Vancouver riot's kissing couple

There they were lying in the road making out while all around them a riot was taking place.

Or at least that's how it seemed.

A stunning photograph, taken by Getty's Richard Lam, who has been a little slow in putting it up on his home page, suddenly became as iconic as the Doisneau shot of the couple kissing in Paris.

Who were these people? Why were they lying there kissing? But, most importantly for those who trawl the Web in search of shaming the latest trolls, was this a setup?

So many things seem to be staged … Read more

Kiss rockers to showcase Babel-busting tech

How do you say "I want to rock and roll all night and party every day" in Dutch, Taiwanese, or Swahili?

You might be able to find out today when Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, two members of the iconic glam rock band Kiss, take part in a real-time "multi-language global chat" with fans.

The chat is, of course, designed to bring attention to Ortsbo.com, a language translation service. From the press release: "Ortsbo.com eliminates the need to cut, copy and paste text into a translator by automatically translating typed text into the … Read more

The 404 812: Where can you, like, turn down your keyboard? (podcast)

Wilson joins us on the show, Max Headroom style from the CNET office in San Francisco. Tune in to the first half where we grill him about his loyalty to the East Coast and why he refuses to take showers in the office. We also have a couple stories in the rundown about teens asking Yahoo about Osama Bin Laden, a Nintendo 3DS augmented reality icon, a Japanese kissing machine, and yet another privacy breach from the already befallen Sony PlayStation Network.

The 404 Digest for Episode 812

Japanese engineer creates Facebook kissing machine. Dude tattoos Nintendo 3DS augmented-reality icon on his arm. Yahoo search trends prove teens don't know Osama bin Laden. Sony hacked again.

Episode 812 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

How to kiss your Facebook friend online for real

While the rest of the world is rapt by news of international terrorists and stealth special ops missions, perhaps we should offer a little thought to kissing.

Our new Web-oriented world has brought people together in ways never before possible, but we're still missing some elements of human connection. You know, like the physical kind.

The Kajimoto Research Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications, however, believes it can bring us that nirvana.

It has create a device that looks like a straw, which doesn't seem entirely sensual. Still, you mimic your kissing motion (everyone's is different, naturally). … Read more

Kiss Controller: Smooch your way to high scores

<bragging>My girlfriend often tells me I'm a great kisser </bragging>, and now those skills could help me become a gaming Casanova.

Artist (and Georgia Tech Ph.D. candidate) Hye Yeon Nam and Sam Mendenhall have created the Kiss Controller, a project that uses snogging motions to control a bowling video game. Setup is relatively easy; one lovebird straps on a headset with sensor receivers, and the other attaches a magnet on their tongue using Fixodent. I can just imagine the odd stare I'll get at the drugstore buying a value size tube of denture adhesive.

To play, the person with the magnet on his or her tongue uses mouth muscles to guide the direction and speed of the bowling ball. As you can see in the video below, centering the ball is a rather tongue-tying experience, while speed is determined by how fast you kiss. Unfortunately, my style of kissing is a little slower and more tender, so I'll have to wait for Romantic Kiss Controller.

The Kiss Controller's primary goal is to elicit the "emotional experience of a kinetic act while users play the game rather than control games with their body." The controller has "not been proposed to the video game industry," but it has gotten a lot of attention in the tech world lately. Sadly, a girl (or guy) is not included with the game.