• GameCrush: Pay to play–with girls [CNET] – The website GameCrush pays girls to play video games and live-chat with gamers who pay for the privilege. It's the gaming equivalent of buying a girl a drink to chat her up, the developers say. A Player (yes, they're called "Players") buys points–500 cost $8.25–and uses them to buy "game time" with a PlayDate (yes, they're called PlayDates). Players browse through PlayDate profiles, and once they find one they're interested in they can send a gaming invite. If the PlayDate accepts the invitation, she can set her mood to "Flirty" or "Dirty" and it's game on (though any real gaming girl would set her profile to "Hurty" and kick your ass). The pair can chat, play, or both for the amount of time purchased. When their time is up, the Player is invited to send the remaining 100 points to his PlayDate as a tip.
• The Idea of the Book [Murketing] – Rob Walker's interesting series of posts that look at the physical performance of the "book" as it morphs into or is represented by or as other objects such as sculpture, food, planters, purses, etc.
• Story Book inColor by AIPTEK – AIPTEK Story Book inColor is the 1st color E-Book on the market and there are 20 built-in illustrated audio stories. Children can open the Story Book inColor and enjoy the story telling with illustration instead of watching TV alone. AIPTEK also provide online bookstore for story book purchasing and downloading. AIPTEK Story Book inColor can store as many books as children want. Story Book inColor creates a whole new experience with fun and easy learning process which leads children learn to love the reading. The 4-way buttons simulated the scenario for children of searching favorite books on bookcase and also the page up and down feeling when reading. There is 1GB internal memory on AIPTEK Story Book inColor which can stores up to 45 story books. The story books also can be saved to SD/SDHC, MMC, MS pro, and USB drive. Besides, in order to protect children’s eyes, after reading over 20 minutes, AIPTEK Story Book inColor will pop up an icon to remind children to take a rest.

I saw this Nokia ad in Wired: A man and an attractive woman are seemingly out on a date together. A connection can happen anywhere, Nokia reminds us. How nice for these two people, enjoying each other’s company. Oops, what’s that? The man is holding a portable electronic device just below the table edge, where’s looking at a baseball game. The connection the man is experiencing isn’t with another person, but with media.

Nokia is encouraging us to use their technology to emulate this cad? To surreptitiously play with their digital appendages while half-faking an interaction with another person? If this technology has merit, why doesn’t he put it on the table so they can look at it together?

We often hear that technology has no inherent good or bad attributes, and it’s the way it ends up being used that determines that. But what about design, based on use scenarios? Or advertising, putting those stories out there in order to drive interest and adoption? It’s one thing when advertising plays “naughty” and we’re in on the joke, but that’s not the tone I get from this; I just see a guy being a jerk and Nokia encouraging the rest of us to follow suit.