Gadgetwise’s Jenna Wortham was forced to contemplate the hardship of loving someone who’s in lust with electronics when one of her readers wrote in with a desperate plea for advice:

My boyfriend is in love with his iPhone. He uses it all the time-during dinner, the movies and even in bed! I have an iPhone too, so I can understand his obsession, but at the same time it’s becoming enough of a distraction while we are together to be a problem. What should I do?

Jenna explained that, as any other relationship issue, you can resolve this one by talking with your partner. You need to set limits, figure out when it’s absolutely unacceptable to reach for the digital mistress and when the wandering attention can be excused. That’s it. It’s that simple. Whether your lover is obsessed with an iPhone, a BlackBerry, a printer or tricked-out ottoman; communication is key. [NY Times]

Photo by Fe Ilya

In a recent New York Times article, and in light of Gov. Sanford’s email exchanges with his Argentine lover, writer Virginia Heffernan considered whether people who fall in love online (via email, Texts, Facebook, Twitter, and such) are indeed falling for each other or whether they have fallen hopelessly in love with technology.

I would argue that, in most cases, the people are truly falling for each other. Whether they are in like, lust, or in love is anyone’s guess but just because the affection grows with keyboard strokes rather than hand holding should not, I believe, minimise the powerful effect that bonding can have on a person or couple.

Yes, technology adds a sense of immediacy that wasn’t present when people fell in love through paper-based letters that one had to wait for eons to arrive. But phone calls provided a sense of urgency too – did he or she call? did they call while I was listening to voice mail, or dialing them? Is my phone working? Did they call while I was checking to see if my phone was working? Why aren’t they answering? Did he see my missed calls? Anyone who started, maintained or ended a relationship in those days before laptops and iPhones knows what this is like.

Plus, immediacy isn’t the only thing that stokes fires. Longing, waiting and anticipation are central themes in many great love stories that are celebrated in literature, operas and in dance. There is a pace to courtship and seduction that is unpredictable – at times, exciting, passionate and fast-paced. At other times, achingly slow, while one person waits to hear from another one or until they are able to visit again, or to kiss or take off their clothes.

Also, technology isn’t necessarily a barrier to letting people see the true core of one another. For many people, and not just the very young who have grown up with computers and mobile phones, email and Facebook are the primary ways that they are able to express their emotions. Though I’m sorry to reference a Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks vehicle, I will, given how You’ve Got Mail was an early and fairly decent exploration of what it can feel like to fall in like/love online even when two people have never (to their knowledge, anyway) met, and also how people can let down their daily waking-life guards and make themselves vulnerable online.

Of course, there are many ways to build intimacy through phone calls, texts, Facebook, Twitter, emails and intra-office chat systems. In some cases it happens to two who have never met. In other instances it happens to two people who have met, or who work closely together, but for whom technology serves as a more private way to flirt or to get to know one another. Kind of like dating except without the expense.

There is a growing amount of research about online dating, flirtation, sex and, yes, even love, and I look forward to learning more from scientists, friends and loved ones about how it works for them. Personally, I try not to judge how two people meet or connect. I’m just happy when they do and when it feels right to those involved (clearly, affairs or relationships that cause hurt to others take it to a different level).

But overall, I often feel that life is too solitary in so many ways to nitpick the ways that people join up or to describe one way of meeting or falling in love as better or more real than another. We’re born alone, we die alone and in between we have so many possible ways to meet others, to feel special, to feel loved and to help someone else feel loved and special and uniquely terrific in their beauty. So what if it happens online? At least it happens. [My Sex Professor]

Dr. Debby Herbenick, author of Because It Feels Good: A Woman’s Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction, is the Associate Director of the centre for Sexual Health Promotion in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation at Indiana University (IU) where she is a Research Scientist. She is also a sexual health educator at The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction where she writes (and hosts audio podcasts of) the Kinsey Confidential column and coordinates educational programming. She has a PhD in Health behaviour from IU, a Master’s degree in Public Health Education (also from IU) and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. In addition, she is certified as a Sexuality Educator from the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists.

Debby writes regular sex columns for Men’s Health magazine, Time Out Chicago magazine, Velocity, Cheeky Chicago, Psychology Today and she has also written for Glamour magazine and Gizmodo (NSFW).

Is it a matter of preference and practice? Yes, but no.

Think about it. The distance it takes to move your hand from the QWERTY to the trackpad, usually below the spacebar, is much closer than the distance it takes to drop your hand on a mouse, reorientate your arm/wrist and fingers into place. And a trackpad’s control scheme uses a finger, which has a lot more dexterity than an arm/wrist you use when handling a mouse. Also, the future is multitouch trackpads. No other control scheme can match the potential of pinching/scrolling with multiple fingers, zooming, etc.

The touchpad is also a really natural movement, practiced by everyone since childhood days of drawing in the sand on the beach, or fingerpainting. The only more natural movement is to trace movement on an actual screen, but any screen we use in a non mobile environment is too big and vertical to do this easily on, for extended periods of time. Besides, the touchpad itself would work great with a secondary LCD display under it, making it essentially, a touchpad.

So, here’s to a future where the trackpad is everywhere. I look forward to it.

[SanwaNexus404, AdessoNexus404, Adesso2Nexus404, DinovoGiz, KeysonicKustomPC, SandbergTechhook, Adesso3Pcrush, MCEallproducts, McsaiteGeekalaert, TruFormProKeyboardco, ToshibaOverclockers, iKeyGadgetadvisor, iKey2Geekwithlaptop, FentexMiniGeekwithlaptop, EeeKeyboardDeviceDaily, LogitechHomeTheaterDialectical, special thanks to Quinton Ma for researching the models in this gallery.]

The trouble all started when a young female intern began to spend several hours each day with Kenji, testing his systems and loading new software routines. When it came time to leave one evening, however, Kenji refused to let her out of his lab enclosure and used his bulky mechanical body to block her exit and hug her repeatedly. The intern was only able to escape after she had frantically phoned two senior staff members to come and temporarily de-activate Kenji.

I know, the future is sounding pretty grim at the moment. But replace the word “Kenji” with “Cylon 6″ and “hug” with one of many more provocative verbs, and I think we’ve finally found a humane interpretation of capital punishment. [Muckflash via Geekologie]

Note: I can’t tell if that shot is actually of the robot in question – anyone know?

Designed by Kate Street, the watch has no traditional time markers and is only denoted by “Loves Me” every other increment. The stainless steel watch is part of a 100-piece, limited-edition collection. Perfect for Valentine’s Day, it runs on a single jewel quartz and has a guarantee for up to 12 months. It’s available for £115, or about $US145. My best friend is probably hoping he won’t have to hear my tormented ramblings about my crush anymore—hey, the crazy has to go somewhere! [Mr. Jones Watchess via RedFerret]

[Latestbuy]

Multiple:Option’s middleware for the DS lets you create a custom puzzle game that ends with a marriage proposal. Simply give the game to your romance target, hope they don’t totally suck at puzzle games and then see if your bet on them tolerating your insufferable nerdiness for the rest of their lives pays off. [Offworld via New Launches]

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