Tag: SATIRE

Here's designer Lauren McCarthy's Conversacube, a cheeky exercise in parody. The little box -- fitted with infrared sensors, microphones and an Arduino processor -- discourages stilted conversation by supplying you with cues like "compliment" and "admit," to keep the words flowing. McCarthy's website provides some self-aware ad copy for the device: "Do away with uncomfortable conversation. ...

As oil continues to seep into and spread throughout the Gulf of Mexico, a newly formed Twitter account has been mocking British Petroleum's (BP) seemingly inept response to the environmental disaster. As of now, nobody is sure who started the BPGlobalPR account, which showed up last week, and now has more than 20,000 followers. According to Advertising Age, BP hasn't requested that the ...

What happens when location-based technology meets fear-based politics? We're not entirely sure, but based on what we've seen from a new app that claims to merge the two, we're not sure we really want to find out, either. Offering the opportunity to "earn tons of cool badges," 'SnapScouts' is a location-based app for Android that encourages users to take photos of people engaging in "suspicious ...

Last summer, insurance firm Legal and General warned social networkers about the threat of criminals who actively monitor sites for updates about unattended homes. Even after thieves burgled the house of a Twitter and Facebook member who had posted "Gone to Hawaii for a week!" on the sites, people still aren't recognizing the dangers of frivolously posting location-specific information. A new ...

In our contemporary 'Inconvenient Truth' culture, much of the industrialized world has become nearly obsessed with finding alternative solutions to the massive problems of fuel shortages, waste, and environmental pollution. Newer and wackier varieties of these alternatives spring up daily, like those biofuels made from e. coli bacteria and, gulp, bunnies. Boo Chapple, an Australian artist ...

Although we've had our fair share of actual celebrity deaths over the past weeks, judging by the (false) news making the rounds online, you'd think half of Hollywood had bit the dust. Jeff Goldblum supposedly took a dive off a cliff in New Zealand, and the tale quickly made its way through Twitter and Facebook. The rumor became so widespread, in fact, that Mr. Goldblum released a statement ...

The Internet is a great source for communication and research... and it makes people act absolutely insane. Just think of the various stresses we receive from our daily encounters with cell phones and computers. Carpal tunnel? Cellbow? General malaise? But now, just to complete the list of ways tech is ruining our lives, Cracked has collected its list of 'Internet Personality Disorders.' The list ...

According to Yahoo Tech, 'Faith Fighter,' the popular Internet game that pitted religious deities against one another in battle, was taken offline by its creators on Tuesday after a prominent Muslim organization protested. The game, which debuted in 2008, has been played by millions of people and has offended that many folks several times over. In an interview with the AFP posted on Yahoo Tech, ...

Do you enjoy first-person shooter games, but get annoyed by actually having to play the game, instead of effortlessly dealing out death and destruction? Then, read on, fellow animated death mongers. Parody news site The Onion has a new game to help satiate your thirst for simulated blood and brain matter. Granted, 1PS (first person shooter) games, such as 'Call of Duty,' are awesome, but ...

Twitter is the latest craze sweeping the online social networking scene, a magical place where short attention spans and narcissism are the norm. Celebrities and politicians have hopped on the microblogging bandwagon, and they're revealing the tedium of their lives in 140-character-or-less messages known as "tweets." With all these squares jumping on board, we all know that it's time for us to ...

Sure, the Onion is supposed to be satirical and over the top, but it certainly speaks the truth about trendy gadgets in this profanity-laced video (after the break). The clip, from the Onion News Network, reports on Sony's newest gadget, which nobody needs and doesn't really do much, yet for whatever reason, everybody needs one. They interview a regular guy outside of an electronics store, who ...

Everybody's favorite fake news site The Onion is reporting that citizens of Liberty City are getting fed up. They claim that the Liberty City Police Department (LCPD) has been negligent and generally unsuccessful in its attempts to curtail the "constant car chases, ongoing gun battles, and overall atmosphere of violence" that has become part and parcel of living in the metropolis. The surge in ...

Malaysian authorities are out to prove that no one has a monopoly on stifling Internet based free speech. Nat Tan, blogger at Jelas.info has been arrested under the country's Official Secrets Act. Nat was arrested, according to initial reports, for posting doctored images of the Deputy Prime Minister that showed him having dinner with a victim of a high profile murder and a prominent ...

As we approach the June 29 mega-launch of the iPhone, Apple is hyping the crap out of itself with new TV ads showing off all of the handset's impressive functionality. In honor of the new ads, we present this classic Conan O'Brien spoof showing that the iPhone is much more versatile than Apple is letting on. You name it, the iPhone does it -- even sideburns. Related Links: iPhones Hitting ...