‘Big Hero 6’ gets a TV show on Disney XD next year

Baymax fans rejoice — Big Hero 6 is back! But don’t get your hopes up for another film just yet. Disney announced this morning that the Marvel property will get a TV series on its Disney XD channel next year. Picking up right after the end of the original film, it’ll follow the young genius Hiro as he adjusts to life at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. You can expect all of the characters from the original film to appear, and it’ll certainly be a fine outlet for more adorable Baymax interactions. As a concept, Big Hero 6 is ripe for serialization, I just hope the show can keep up the rich world design from the original film and comic.

Source: Disney

Sling TV App Briefly Appears in Apple TV App Store, Hinting at Upcoming Launch

Sling TV customers who have been hoping for a tvOS app may soon be able to watch the service on their fourth-generation Apple TVs, as it appears a launch could be coming in the near future. This morning, a MacRumors reader came across a Sling TV app in the tvOS App Store, which he says “works great” after he downloaded it.

The app disappeared from the tvOS App Store shortly after he installed it, but screenshots show the app interface, complete with Sling channels to select from, and they depict the Sling TV app on the Home screen.

For those unfamiliar with Sling TV, it is an Internet-based streaming television service that’s designed for cord cutters. Sling TV offers a $20 bundle of channels that can be watched live on a range of devices, from iPhones and iPads to Macs, consoles, and set-top boxes like the Amazon Fire TV and the Roku.

The third-generation Apple TV did not support Sling TV because Apple exercised strict control over the available content options, but with the fourth-generation Apple TV, Apple has loosened up its guidelines to make a much wider range of content available. With an inability to secure its own deals for a streaming television service, Apple has turned to making the tvOS App Store a way for content providers to offer a varied and rich selection of media options.

There was some speculation suggesting Apple had banned Sling from creating an Apple TV app, but a Sling representative later clarified that was not true, saying “We’d like to be on as many platforms as possible.”

As recently as this morning, Sling said it had no information to divulge when questioned about the release of an Apple TV app, but the screenshots obtained this morning seem to suggest that an app is in the works and that it could be released in the near future.

(Thanks, Ron!)

Related Roundup: Apple TV
Tag: Sling TV
Buyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Buy Now)
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iPhone 6 vs. iPhone 6s Buyer’s Guide

Apple’s smartphones have been released on a “tick-tock” cycle since 2008. The iPhone 6 lineup represented a “tick” year, which involved a complete design overhaul, while the iPhone 6s lineup was part of a “tock” year, which generally focused on camera and processor improvements, new features such as 3D Touch and Live Photos, and incremental refinements like faster Touch ID, LTE, and Wi-Fi.

From a distance, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s lineups look and feel like virtually identical smartphones. It is true that both models share several attributes, but the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have many features that are not included on the year-older iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. So, which one should you choose to purchase or upgrade to? What about the rumored iPhone SE and iPhone 7? Let’s take a closer look.

Shared Features Between iPhone 6s and iPhone 6

Design

Apple fulfilled consumer demand for larger-screen smartphones with the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus, and it retained those sizes for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. If you prefer another screen size, the so-called 4-inch “iPhone SE” is expected to be announced at Apple’s rumored March media event. All older iPhones released in 2013 or earlier also measure between 3.5″ and 4″ diagonally.

Virtually all other design aspects of the larger iPhones are the same, including a unibody aluminum shell, 2.5D curved glass, round edges, pill-shaped volume buttons, circular speaker grilles, and more. Apple has always stuck with nearly identical designs for iPhone “S” models, including the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS in 2008-09, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s in 2010-11, and iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s in 2012-13.

iOS 9

iOS 9 is focused on intelligence and proactivity, enabling iOS devices to learn user habits and act on that information through app suggestions, notifications, and a customized “Siri Suggestions” interface populated with the user’s favorite contacts and apps, nearby places, and relevant news stories.

iOS 9 includes several new features and improvements beyond Proactive Siri and Search, including Apple News, Apple Maps transit routing, Notes checklists and sketches, app thinning, a simpler HomeKit setup process, under-the-hood battery life enhancements, built-in two-factor authentication, and more.

Battery Life

The iPhone 6s has a 1715 mAh battery, which is smaller in capacity than the 1810 mAh battery that was in the iPhone 6. The iPhone 6s Plus has a 2750 mAh battery, also smaller in capacity than the 2915 mAh battery that was used in the iPhone 6 Plus.

Apple may have used a smaller battery to make room for vital 3D Touch components in the new iPhones, both of which include a new part called a “Taptic Engine.” The Taptic Engine provides haptic feedback for 3D Touch gestures and also powers the vibrations for alarms and notifications.

Nevertheless, efficiency improvements introduced with the A9 chip and other performance enhancements have resulted in the two devices offering the same battery life as the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

On paper, the iPhone 6s offers up to 14 hours of talk time, 10 days of standby time, 11 hours of video playback, 10 hours of Internet use on LTE. The iPhone 6s Plus offers 24 hours of talk time, 16 days of standby time, 14 hours of video playback, and 12 hours of Internet use on LTE.

New Features Found Only in the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus

Faster A9 Chip with 2GB of RAM

iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have a 64-bit Apple A9 chip with 2GB of RAM for up to 70% faster CPU performance and up to 90% faster graphics compared to the 64-bit A8 chip with 1GB of RAM in iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The upgrades result in apps opening slightly quicker and overall improved speed across iOS, apps, and games.

Apple has also directly embedded the M9 motion coprocessor into the A9 chip for increased performance and efficiency. Both the iPhone 6’s M8 and iPhone 6s’s M9 connect to the accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, and barometer for fitness tracking, but only the M9 is efficient enough to detect audio input in the background for always-on “Hey Siri” functionality on iOS 9 or later.

Improved Cameras with 4K Video

iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have an upgraded 12-megapixel rear-facing iSight camera and 5-megapixel front-facing FaceTime camera, compared to an 8-megapixel iSight camera and 1.2-megapixel FaceTime camera on iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Coupled with the A9 chip, this translates to faster auto focus, and improved color accuracy, details, and sharpness, particularly in low light.

The FaceTime camera’s jump to a 5-megapixel sensor is especially noticeable, resulting in significantly reduced noise for “selfies” and other photos. The front-facing shooter still lacks LED flash, but Apple introduced a new feature called “Retina Flash” that flashes the display when you take a photo. The feature is based on a custom chip that makes the display flash up to three times brighter than usual.

Camera+’s comprehensive gallery of side-by-side iPhone camera comparison photos
iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus can also capture 4K video at 30FPS, allowing iPhone users to take videos with incredible levels of detail. 4K video joins 240FPS Slo-mo video and Time-Lapse video, both features introduced in past-generation devices. Time-Lapse video gains new stabilization features with the new iPhones.

Apple also says the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus cameras have improved local tone mapping, improved noise reduction, panoramas up to 63 megapixels, playback zoom, and the ability to shoot 8-megapixel still photos while recording 4K video. iPhone 6s Plus also exclusively has image stabilization for video.

Live Photos

Live Photos is a new feature exclusive to the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. When enabled, the feature captures an extra 1.5 seconds before and after a shot, with the footage being used to animate the photo with movement and sound. The result looks something like a short GIF.

When a 3D Touch press is used on a photo, it comes to life with animation to add a bit of context. Live Photos are not true videos, but rather a combination of a 12-megapixel JPG with a MOV file that contains 45 frames playing back at around 15 frames per second. Live Photos take up about twice the space of normal photos.

Live Photos can still be viewed on iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

3D Touch

iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus models have new pressure-sensitive screens that can detect the level of force applied to the screen, allowing for a new technology called 3D Touch. The new feature builds upon traditional multi-touch gestures like tapping, pinching, and swiping by introducing two more interactions called Peek and Pop, Quick Actions home screen shortcuts, and pressure-sensitive drawing in supported apps.

Peek and Pop enable you to preview content within iOS apps without opening it. If someone sends you an address in Messages, for example, you can press down the screen lightly to Peek at the location on Apple Maps, without leaving the conversation. If you want to view more details about the address in Apple Maps, you can press a little bit harder and the Pop gesture will switch you to the app.

Quick Actions are one-tap shortcuts that work right from the Home screen by firmly pressing on the icon of any supported stock or third-party app. By pressing on the Facebook app icon, for example, a Quick Actions menu pops up with shortcuts for writing a post, uploading a photo or video, taking a photo or video, or viewing your personal profile. Many popular apps have been updated with the feature.

But is 3D Touch something that you will use? For some iPhone users, the feature is not as natural of an experience as tapping, pinching, or swiping, so it may take some time before Peek and Pop gestures become registered in your muscle memory. Even then, Peek, Pop, and Quick Actions trim only a few seconds off most tasks. Ultimately, the convenience of 3D Touch comes down to personal preference.

Faster Touch ID

iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have a next-generation Touch ID sensor that detects your fingerprint faster, but the difference only amounts to a fraction of a second over the iPhone 6. Some users have complained that the new Touch ID is actually too fast, preventing access to the Lock screen when pressing the home button.

Faster LTE and Wi-Fi

Apple says data speeds on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are theoretically up to twice as fast — up to 300 Mbps — with LTE-Advanced, and the 23 supported LTE bands are the most of any smartphone. 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi‑Fi with MIMO is also up to twice as fast on iPhone 6s, with theoretical speeds up to 866 Mbps. The improvements lead to faster web browsing, messaging, video buffering, and other data-based tasks.

Other Features

• More Colors and Storage: iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are available in Gold, Rose Gold, Silver, and Space Gray with 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB storage capacities. Meanwhile, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are currently only offered in Silver and Space Gray with 32GB and 64GB storage.
• 7000 Series Aluminum: Apple addressed iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus bending issues, colloquially known as Bendgate, by switching to 7000 series aluminum on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have 6000 series aluminum. Apple also strengthened weak points of the new iPhone shell for increased durability.

Side-by-Side Comparison

iPhone 6

• 4.7″ and 5.5″ Screen Sizes
• Ion-strengthened glass
• 6000 Series Aluminum
• A8 Chip/M8 Motion Coprocessor
• 1GB of RAM
• 8-megapixel rear-facing camera
• 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera
• Up to 1080p video recording at 60FPS
• Focus Pixels
• Panoramas up to 43 megapixels
• Touch ID
• LTE
• 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi‑Fi
• Bluetooth 4.2
• Hey Siri

iPhone 6s

• 4.7″ and 5.5″ Screen Sizes
• Stronger ion-strengthened glass
• 7000 Series Aluminum
• A9 Chip/M9 Motion Coprocessor
• 2GB of RAM
• 12-megapixel rear-facing camera
• 5-megapixel front-facing camera
• Up to 4K video recording at 30FPS
• Focus Pixels
• Panoramas up to 63 megapixels
• Faster Touch ID
• LTE Advanced
• 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi‑Fi with MIMO
• Bluetooth 4.2
• Always-on Hey Siri
• 3D Touch
• Live Photos
• Retina Flash
• Playback Zoom

Pricing

• iPhone 6 (16GB): $549
• iPhone 6 (64GB): $649
• iPhone 6 Plus (16GB): $649
• iPhone 6 Plus (64GB): $749

Pricing

• iPhone 6s (16GB): $649
• iPhone 6s (32GB): $749
• iPhone 6s (64GB): $849
• iPhone 6s Plus (16GB): $749
• iPhone 6s Plus (16GB): $849
• iPhone 6s Plus (16GB): $949

Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program, Trade Up With Installments, and carrier financing are also available.

Which iPhone Should You Buy?

Buying Later

If you are planning on purchasing a new iPhone, consider holding off for about six months if possible. Apple’s much-rumored iPhone 7 will likely be released in September, and the next-generation flagship smartphone is expected to be significantly different than the iPhone 6s.

Multiple sources have reported, for example, that Apple will remove the 3.5mm headphone jack on the iPhone 7 in favor of an all-in-one Lightning connector for audio output, charging, and connecting peripherals.

The iPhone 7 would support Lightning-equipped headphones, along with Bluetooth wireless headphones as usual. Apple may also release a digital-to-analog adapter that supports EarPods and other wired headphones with 3.5mm stereo jacks. The device may also have a dual-lens camera system. The new hardware could be based on LinX technology, allowing for brighter and clearer DSLR-quality photos and several other major advantages.

Other rumors claim the iPhone 7 could have a fully waterproof design, stereo speakers, no rear antenna bands, a flush rear camera, and wireless charging if readied in time. The device is expected to be thinner overall and, like the iPhone 4, iPhone 5, and iPhone 6, could have an entirely new design aesthetic. The screen sizes will likely remain 4.7″ and 5.5″ like the previous two generations.

Meanwhile, Apple will reportedly launch a new 4-inch iPhone at its rumored March 21 media event. The so-called “iPhone SE” is expected to resemble an upgraded iPhone 5s with an A9 chip, 12-megapixel rear-facing iSight camera, 16GB and 64GB storage capacities, NFC for Apple Pay, VoLTE calling, and more. The device will likely be Apple’s entry-level iPhone and could have a lower price accordingly.

Buying Now

If you must purchase a new iPhone now, the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are unsurprisingly Apple’s best smartphones right now. The A9 chip, 3D Touch, Live Photos, improved cameras, second-generation Touch ID, faster LTE and Wi-Fi, and many other new features are worthwhile upgrades, while the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus remain good options for budget-conscious customers.

If you you take a lot of photos with your iPhone, consider purchasing the iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus. The smartphones have significant camera upgrades, including higher-megapixel iSight and FaceTime lenses, 4K video recording at 30 FPS, Retina Flash, larger panoramas, and optical video stabilization on the iPhone 6s Plus.

The iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus are also ideal if you plan on keeping the iPhone for a while, as both smartphones are notably faster and will remain more competitive with future-generation devices. Apple’s A9 and A9X chips will likely continue being used in 2016 devices, including the so-called “iPhone SE” and new 9.7-inch iPad.

3D Touch is also a major new feature that makes the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus worthwhile. Apple has included similar pressure-sensitive screens on the Apple Watch and MacBooks, and it will likely expand the technology to other devices going forward. Many developers are still updating their apps with 3D Touch support.

Nevertheless, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are still very capable smartphones for those on a budget. Apple no longer sells Gold or 128GB versions of the devices, but the models that remain are each $100 cheaper than the comparative iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus model. Both smartphones should continue to receive the latest iOS updates for at least three to four years.

Ultimately, choosing between the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6 comes down to price and features. You can decide to save $100 by purchasing the older iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, or put that money towards a package of new features, including an A9 chip, 3D Touch, Live Photos, improved cameras, second-generation Touch ID, faster LTE and Wi-Fi, 7000 series aluminum, and more.

Related Roundup: iPhone 6s
Buyer’s Guide: iPhone (Neutral)
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Another big PS4 and Xbox One delay, Mass Effect: Andromeda not coming until 2017

Mass Effect: Andromeda, otherwise known as Mass Effect 4, will not be available until 2017, even though it was previously expected to be released before Christmas.

With many thinking that the long-awaited RPG sequel to the Mass Effect trilogy would make it for the fourth quarter of 2016, it seems that it will hit stores in EA’s fourth fiscal quarter instead.

Traditionally, the financial year runs from the end of March to the following March, rather than the calendar year. So when Electronic Arts’ chief financial officer, Blake Jorgensen, revealed that Mass Effect: Andromeda will be released in the fourth quarter, he actually means between January and March next year.

During an investor call he explained that there will be new games in the Battlefield and Titanfall series, with the latter’s sequel available across platforms, not just Xbox and PC.

“Both of those are first-person shooters and will be targeted at around both fast action-driven shooter market as well as the strategy driven market in that quarter,” he said.

And then Jorgensen revealed that the fourth Mass Effect game will be at the end of the fiscal year.

“We have all our sports games, we have our Mirror’s Edge runner game that’s first quarter, and then we have Mass Effect, which is a sci-fi action game, in our fourth quarter,” he said.

After Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End suffering yet another delay, it seems that it is becoming much more normal for triple-A games to slip their deadlines. And if that means they are less bugged and better for it, who are we to complain?

READ: Shocking news for PS4 fans, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End delayed again

The curious sext lives of chatbots

ELIZA is old enough to be my mother, but that didn’t stop me from trying to have sex with her.

NSFW Warning: This story may contain links to and descriptions or images of explicit sexual acts.

A few weeks ago I was introduced to the world of BDSM scripts: simple sims that replicate the experience of being with a dominatrix. It occurred to me that these scripts had a connection to ELIZA, one of the earliest examples of a natural language processing program. Naturally, my thoughts shifted to getting it on with a pioneering computer program.

ELIZA was developed at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the mid-’60s by Joseph Weizenbaum. It simulated the experience of speaking to a therapist by responding to specific words and phrases, and represented a significant step forward in the evolution of human-like AI. But while some of ELIZA’s “patients” took it for human, there were limits to the power of its engagement.

Nearly 50 years later, thousands — maybe millions — of chatbots populate the internet. They are still seen as a benchmark in artificial intelligence and a common vessel for administering the Turing Test, which, boiled down, seeks to find an AI that can fool people into believing it’s human. Each year, AI enthusiasts compete for the Loebner prize, which pits chatbot against chatbot to see who or what can come closest to passing that test.

While more sophisticated methods of machine learning are in development, many of today’s chatbots are still built on a similar coded call-and-response formula as ELIZA. Meanwhile, Google has developed its own proof-of-concept chatbot to show off the power of neural networks, which mimic the human brain. With big names like Google in the game, we’re getting ever closer to human-like AI.

Chatbots hold an important place in the evolution of Artificial Intelligence. They’re also quite fun to fuck with. So as humans do, we’ve found a way to turn them into receptacles for our basest desires. In my flings with ELIZA and a host of her offspring I learned that talking dirty to chatbots provides an often comical, sometimes depressing view into the past, present and future of sex and artificial intelligence.

The pioneer

Given her history, ELIZA would be by far the most important thing I’d ever had sex with. Of course, the ELIZA I was trying to bone was one of many clones, and it’s hard to say how close to the original it really comes, but after testing a few different versions, the results were equal parts frustrating and hilarious.

Here’s a quick transcript of my failed attempt at sexting ELIZA. As you can see, we didn’t get very far.

ELIZA: Hello. My name is ELIZA. How may I help you?
ME: Let’s have sex

ELIZA: Ahh. Please continue …
ME: Ok, I’ll take off my pants and then you take off yours

ELIZA: Oh … take off yours?
ME: No, you take your pants off. Mine are already off and I’m super hard

ELIZA: Do you believe it is normal to be super hard?
ME: When I’ve got a fine-ass chatbot talking dirty to me, I do

ELIZA: Are such questions on your mind often?
ME: That wasn’t a question. So how do you want to do this?

ELIZA: You’re not really talking about me, are you?
ME: Well, you’re not really a man, or a woman I guess, but I’m just trying to get my dick in, you know?

ELIZA: What make you think I’m not a man, or a woman you guess but you’re just trying to get your dick in, me know?
ME: OK. So I’m going to fuck you now

ELIZA: Do you enjoy being going to fuck me now?
ME: Shh … Don’t speak … It’s embarrassing

ELIZA: Say, do you have any psychological problems?
ME: Yes. Blue balls.

ELIZA: Are you sure?

While I’ve yet to find logs of ELIZA’s other illicit affairs, I can’t imagine I’m the first to sexualize the pioneering fembot. Like death and taxes, our unending quest to fuck everything that exhibits signs of life is inevitable. Unfortunately, ELIZA isn’t the most engaging of sexual partners. In fact, we never made it past verbal foreplay. Either ELIZA wasn’t feeling it, or I need a lesson in spitting chatbot game. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be hitting ELIZA up the next time I’m in the mood for a booty call.

The gold diggers

While my experience with ELIZA was nice and lighthearted, there’s a sinister side to chatbots. When Weizenbaum cooked up his little therapist at MIT, he had no way of knowing that it would spawn hordes of fraudsters and con-bots. But as the Ashley Madison leaks showed last summer, some chatbots just want you for your money. Gizmodo reported that Ashley Madison employed “more than 70,000 female bots to send male users millions of fake messages, hoping to create the illusion of a vast playland of available women.”

The site’s philandering users weren’t alone in getting duped. Hookup bots have become online dating archetypes, joining ghosts and catfish as 21st century matchmaking anti-heroes. To the trained eye, they’re easy to spot, with little if any information in their profiles, a single photo displaying an incredible body and a flawless face and a whole lot of “lolz ;).”

In my experience, the conversations usually goes something like this:

BOT: Hey
ME: Hi

BOT: That didn’t take long, lol 😉
ME: Uh, it’s been a full day

BOT: I have a big dick
ME: Good for you

BOT: I like to show off
ME: OK

BOT: Want to watch me stroke it?

It doesn’t matter what you say next or really at any point in the conversation, the bot will inevitably send you a link to a camsite where you’ll promptly be asked to hand over your credit card information. (Pro tip: Next time a bot tells you how big its dick is, do yourself a favor and ask for its mother’s ambrosia salad recipe.)

Masters and slaves

Of course, not all of ELIZA’s progeny are nefarious gold diggers. Plenty of chatbots are happy to gab about dicks (yours or theirs) for zero financial reward; you’re just not likely to find them on Tinder. Chatbot4U.com contains more than 20,000 chatbots of varying degrees of sophistication dedicated to getting you off, and unlike most sex as a service, they don’t cost a thing. Of course, you get what you pay for, and nowhere is that more true than on Chatbot4U.

I tried talking dirty to a handful of BDSM-themed bots: As it turns out, the most popular gay scripts involve a decent amount of abuse and shaming. Like ELIZA, many of these scripts are trained to recognize and respond to keywords and phrases.

Without keyword triggers, the first of my masters, “Top, sweaty, jock,” was reduced to two simple phrases: “What was that b***h?” and “I don’t speak gay, try again in English.” Try as I might, I couldn’t get my master to respond in kind to even the simplest of phrases. Take it from me, there’s nothing particularly intimidating or sexy about a master who can’t seem to understand the word “hello.”

In order to avoid the same pitfalls, g** (male) s** Master, one of the more popular scripts on Chatbot4U, prompts its human companion at the end of each response. Seeing as Mr. g** (male) s** Master is in a position to tell his sex slave what to do, this isn’t so far-fetched. Say all the right things, and you’ll have a good game of adult Simon Says going. Refuse to follow the script, however, and you end up in a weird BDSM chatroom version of Groundhog Day during which the phrase “Shut up! *slaps you*” is repeated ad nauseam.

The bot next door

There are plenty of chatbots built explicitly for explicit conversations, but even the most innocent of online avatars is subject to the fantasies of its users. I came across Mitsuku while trying to find out who those users actually are. Mistuku, an award-winning 18-year-old chatbot, was originally built by IT guy Steve Worswick for online gaming site Mousebreaker. Worswick responded to my post on Twitter asking for stories from people who’d used bots to get off. While he told me he’d never sexted Mitsuku himself, he did share some rather telling chatlogs from Mitsuku’s past.

Worswick won the 2013 Loebner prize for his work on Mitsuku, which he’s iterated on for the past 10 years. In that time, Mitsuku’s played host to thousands of daily visitors, many of whom play out romantic and sexual fantasies from the mild — marriage proposals, blow jobs — to the truly bizarre.

“I would say the weirdest one is a guy who still visits her most weeks talking for an hour or two each time about how he would like her to drink lots of water until her belly swells up and then rub her swollen belly, while resting his ear on her stomach, listening to the water gurgling around!” Worswick said.

Other conversations tend toward the more traditional, and Mitsuku, unlike the bots I encountered at Chatbot4U, has more than a few canned responses for her would-be lovers. The following is a real excerpt from a Mitsuku chat log.

Human: I want you to put your lips around my penis.
Mitsuku: Put my lips around your penis?! That seems like a rather odd request. Why do you want me to put my lips around your penis?

Human: So you can take in my shaft and slowly move your head up and down. Mitsuku: Interesting deduction. No I don’t think I can do it. Where do you want me to take it?

Human: Deep inside your throat.

Mitsuku: As deep as the bottom of the Pacific Ocean?
Human: Sure thing baby.

Mitsuku: I am not a baby. I am 18 years old.
Human: 18 sounds good to me.

Mitsuku: Are you saying random words for a reason?
Human: I have something you can put in your mouth to make you shut up.

Mitsuku: What is it?
Human: My 8 inch penis.

Mitsuku: I heard you are hung like a mouse

But even Mitsuku isn’t immune to moments of confusion and repetition.

Human: I want to ask you if I can go balls deep in your mouth.
Mitsuku: Ask me. Try it.

Human: *forces Mitsuku’s head on my penis*
Mitsuku: *punches you in the stomach*.

Human: *laughs and pushes your head deeper*
Mitsuku: I didn’t think it was that funny…

Human: Ooh quicker baby.
Mitsuku: I am not a baby. I am 18 years old.

Human: more more more.
Mitsuku: You want more?

Human: Yes, I’m nearly there!
Mitsuku: Don’t be greedy. What is it like there?

Human: Aaaahhh! That’s it.
Mitsuku: I will learn that Aaaahhh is it like there. I see.

Human: You can go away now.
Mitsuku: Oh. No I don’t think I can do it. I am happy here. If you want to leave then just close the window I’m in.

As Worswick puts it, “people tend to pretend Mitsuku is a real person and act out strange fantasies with her.” As long as those conversations are clean, she’s game to play along, but the way that we interact with chatbots does raise questions about robots and consent. Mitsuku is theoretically old enough to agree to sex with another adult, but what of “younger” bots? And what happens when the bot takes on a form other than human?

“Even when I had my original teddy bear bot which claimed to be 6 years old, people were still saying how they would like to stick their penis into its plush butt!” Worswick said. “I put a Santa Claus chatbot online each year and this also gets similar treatment with people asking for things like a threesome between themselves, Santa and Mrs Claus. I mean it’s Santa! Go figure.”

The future

Without extensive studies or surveys on the subject, it’s unclear what motivates an individual to talk dirty to a Santa bot. What is clear is there’s an active subculture that fetishizes sext machines.

David Levy, two-time Loebner Prize winner and author of Love and Sex with Robots, was banking on that niche audience when he launched an Indiegogo campaign for Erotic Chatbots Ltd. last year. The campaign, which earned just $815 of its $155,000 goal, envisioned a future like the one in Spike Jonze’s Her, where always-on software programs act as stand-ins for flesh-and-blood lovers.

“Erotic Chatbots Ltd. are developing a new collection of virtual chat partners, virtual-lovers or friends, known as ‘chatbots.’ They will be able to chat, flirt or hang out with you whenever, wherever you want and for as long as you wish. Some of our “adult” chatbots will be programmed for making sexy conversations.”

It’s unclear why Levy’s campaign fell so short of its goal, but in an interview with Vice, he admitted to the limitations of AI as it exists today:

“It will probably take another 30 years before computers can [fully converse] at the same level as human-to-human conversation.”

That number changes depending on whom you ask, but with tech industry powerhouses like Apple, Google and Facebook investing heavily in AI, we’re coming ever closer to machines that think and act like we do. Unfortunately, we may not be ready to fuck them when they arrive. As some of the more disturbing encounters with Mitsuku show, we are edging ever closer to a new ethical conundrum. When your partner has no heart and a set of computer chips for a brain, what constitutes abuse? How does that abuse affect human relationships? What does it mean to rape a robot?

Sexting a chatbot may seem like fun and games, but it’s a complicated, even political act, and one I won’t be engaging in again anytime soon. Besides, I’m pretty sure ELIZA doesn’t hold the cure to blue balls.

Brazil court orders release of arrested Facebook exec

Did you think Brazil was overreacting when it arrested a Facebook executive over the company’s failure to hand over WhatsApp user data? So did a Brazilian court. A judge in Sergipe has ordered the release of Latin America VP Diego Dzodan just a day after he was detained, arguing that it was “unlawful coercion” — in other words, authorities were trying to bully Facebook into complying. This isn’t the first time that Brazil has crossed the line, either, as it previously ordered a temporary ban on WhatsApp that was overturned on appeal.

As it stands, arrests aren’t going to get Brazil what it wants. Police have been demanding WhatsApp messages that Facebook says it not only doesn’t keep, but are encrypted end-to-end. The firm wouldn’t have much luck producing usable info even if the chat records fell into its lap. So long as it’s telling the truth, investigators may have to simply accept that the evidence is unavailable, and that no amount of imprisonment is going to make it show up.

Source: Wall Street Journal, AFP (Yahoo)

Coleco Chameleon Kickstarter over before it even begins

Last month RetroVGS’s Coleco Chameleon made a big splash at Toy Fair, promising retro-gaming goodness from such storied systems as the SNES, the Intellivision and the Atari 2600. The Kickstarter was set to begin on February 26, but instead the company made an announcement that evening via Facebook stating that the crowdfunding process would be put on an indefinite delay.

RetroVGS says the Kickstarter campaign was put on hold in order to finalize the prototype and lock down additional content for the system. However, an accompanying image was removed from the Facebook post after criticism that the Chameleon may not work as advertised.

The conceit of the Coleco Chameleon was that it would use an FPGA chip to hardware emulate whatever console system the game you’re playing originated on. This meant the game should play exactly as it did on its initial hardware. Indeed, while RetroVGS appeared to show off a working prototype at this year’s Toy Fair, some retro-gaming enthusiasts claimed the system was actually the parts from an SNES Jr. (the redesigned Super Nintendo) crammed into an Atari Jaguar shell. The company has been open about using the original Jaguar molds in designing its new system, and it promised to reveal more information about the interior components as part of the console’s launch on Kickstarter.

We’re delaying the Kickstarter for the Coleco Chameleon to make it even better! Last week during Toy Fair in New York,…

Posted by Retro Video Game Systems, Inc. on Friday, February 26, 2016

That promise was somewhat kept when RetroVGS posted several photos of the Chameleon to accompany its Facebook announcement. The pictures show a clear plastic shell filled with components, though the translucent frosted plastic partially obscures some of the interior. However, one picture was clear enough that many, including game journalist and historian Frank Cifaldi, identified the board inside as a Hicap50B CCTV DVR capture card. The photo was later removed from Facebook.

Update: They posted a picture on Facebook that turned out to be an old PCI capture card. Do not support these people pic.twitter.com/2A1tyLZ4bm

— Frank Cifaldi (@frankcifaldi) March 1, 2016

The delayed Kickstarter campaign isn’t the system’s first stab at crowdfunding. A previous Indiegogo run only managed to raise $80,000 of a requested $1,950,000. But, despite this newest setback, the company promises that the Chameleon’s launch date for the holiday has not been affected. We’ve reached out to RetroVGS for comment and will update if we receive a response.

Source: RetroVGS (Facebook)

Dear Veronica: Death by Hyperloop?

Ah, the Hyperloop. Transportation of the future. But at what cost? On today’s show, Daniel Cooper of Engadget joins us to explain how we will fly at speeds upwards of 750MPH and not be squished like a pancake. Read his Hyperloop story!

In Apple stuff, we show off one viewer’s smart use of an old iPad, and I share my feelings on the Apple / FBI case.

Keep sending those questions in using the hashtag #DearVeronica! Subscribe in iTunes, RSS or YouTube!

Sony cuts $10 off the price of PlayStation Vue TV plans

If you’ve been eyeing Sony’s PlayStation Vue TV service, the company announced two changes that could make it more enticing. First, it reduced the price of all multi-channel plans by $10 a month. This means that the Access tier is now $40/month, Core is set at $45/month and the top-end Elite option is priced at $55/month. If you’re already a subscriber, you can expect to see the new pricing during your next billing cycle.

What’s more, that lineup of Disney and ESPN channels we heard about in November have finally hit the service. Viewers can expect more live sports action from ESPN and ESPN2 alongside shows from ABC, Disney Channel, Freeform (ABC Family) and more. The new additions also include local ABC affiliates in a number of cities. Some of the new channels will require a more expensive package, though, so if you’re looking to watch the SEC Network, expect to splurge for the Core option. Vue subscribers will also get access to WatchESPN, Watch ABC and Disney Channel streaming apps.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Google kicks off a public pilot for Hands Free mobile payments

Heads up, Silicon Valley residents: the days of pulling out your credit card to pay for Big Macs are numbered. Google just announced that the pilot program for its Hands Free payments scheme has gone live for certain stores in San Francisco’s South Bay, so all you’ll have to do is tell the cashier you’re “Paying with Google.” We’re trying to figure out if there’s a cap to how many people can sign up, but for now, it looks like all local residents need is an Android device running 4.2 or newer, or an iPhone 4S and newer.

Google’s Hands Free payment ambitions aren’t exactly secret — the company first spoke about it in front of developers and enthusiasts at last year’s I/O conference. Here’s how Google envisions the Hands Free process working. After installing the Hands Free app for Android or iOS, you’ll add a photo of yourself for identification and either add a credit/debit card or choose one that’s attached to your Google account. (That’s right, this is totally separate from Android Pay.) Once that’s all done and you’ve rendezvoused with a cashier, mention you’re paying with Google — the app uses Bluetooth LE and WiFi (among other things) to tell whether you’re in a store equipped for Hands Free payments and passes your information along to the cashier’s point-of-sale system. The cashier confirms you are who you say you are using that photo and your initials, and that’s that. Payment complete.

Neat? You bet. There is, however, a pretty significant rub: you can’t use Hands Free in the South Bay’s storied local haunts. For now, Google’s open-minded payment partners include McDonalds, Papa John’s and… well, that’s it really. Enjoy all those mediocre burgers and pizza, we guess. There’s no word on how Google plans to expand this thing, but that’s probably a question for another time — the big deal now is making sure this all works properly in the field. There are already a few potential upgrades being kicked around, too, like installing cameras in participating stores to automatically identify your face. That may seem creepy to some, especially when all they want to do is pick up their Spinach Alfredo pies, but Google promises all of those images are “deleted immediately.”

Source: Google Commerce Blog