If you hear the name Yoda, you probably think of the little sage sage in the 'Star Wars' films who had a funny way of speaking and apparently was pretty handy with a lightsaber. In Japan, however, Yoda is simply a common family name, a situation that social networking site Facebook seems somewhat oblivious to, since Facebook has been blocking all 'Yodas' from signing up on the site.

According to Boing Boing, Japanese author and translator Hiroko Yoda was attempting to create a profile on the site, but was prevented due to an error message about her name. After using different spellings, she was eventually allowed in. She contacted the site and received this note from Facebook's customer service:

Facebook blocks the registration of a number of names that are frequently abused on the site. The name "Yoda," also being the name of a popular Star Wars character, is on this list of blocked names. I apologize again for the inconvenience. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Completely locking a considerable portion of the population of Japan out of your service seems like a little more than an inconvenience to us. Sure, they may not be able to use the Force, but they can certainly use the Internet just fine, and since when is that not enough criteria for a Facebook account? [From: Boing Boing]

Dirty tricks used to mislead voters and keep them away from the polls, but new Web-centric attempts to disenfranchise voters are stoking fears amongst voters and activists. In the past, political trickery has relied on phone calls, fliers, and direct mailing, which are much easier to track and prosecute than the new wave of political scare tactics.

Traditional calls, like the push polls in 2000 that lifted Bush over McCain in South Carolina, have been replaced by robo-calls via VoIP that are harder to trace and not subject to the same restrictions land-line and cell phone based political phone campaigns are. Such tactics were turned on African-American voters in North Carolina during this primary season when calls were placed that led voters to believe they were not properly registered.

More familiar online techniques such as phishing, pharming (secretly redirecting traffic from one site to another), and good old fashioned typo-squatting have also made their way to the political arena. The primary battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton saw hackers redirecting visitors to Obama's social networking site MyBarackObama.com to Clinton's home page.

Experts expect to see spam e-mails giving out incorrect polling locations, misleading information about who can and cannot vote, and even money making and identity theft schemes centered around voter registration.

Of course all of the uses of the Internet in politics are not nefarious. Barack Obama has proven himself adept at utilizing social media and activists have been using it to organize large numbers of people since the 2004 Howard Dean campaign. [From: CNN]

When humans go into space, they're protected from the cold extremes by armored walls, thick glass and airlocks. They're also prevented from coming into contact with any potential space bugs thanks to their completely sealed suits. Their computers, apparently, are completely exposed to the elements, being shot up into space with nary a virus scanner aboard. No surprise, then, that computers on the International Space Station have been infected with a common computer virus.

The virus is Gammima.AG and is the type that runs in the background and steals usernames and passwords, with the hopes of hijacking people's accounts to a variety of popular Asian online games. Fortunately, this is hardly a major threat to our orbital security, but it suggests that our space security may need to be tighter. NASA is pledging to install scanners on any laptops destined for orbit, and we're hoping it also has them back on Earth, too. [From: BBC News]

Everybody knows that cyber-bullying (when someone goes out of their way to be a jerk online, a.k.a. 'griefing') is terrifically irritating. It's behavior that many gamers, particularly those in the online virtual world 'Second Life,' have turned into something of a degenerate art form. But is it a threat to our health? Yes, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). The CDC has elevated the discussion of this issue from niche online nuisance to a decidedly mainstream issue.

According to a newly-released CDC report, cyber-bullying incidents rose 50-percent between 2000 and 2005. While there haven't been any studies since, there's little doubt that online bullying hasn't seen similar -- if not more dramatic -- growth since then.

Unfortunately, the report says, not much can be done about online bullying, since filtering non-profane but still hateful speech is all but impossible online. If you're a parent, we suggest you talk to your kids about online bullies and how pathetic they are -- not only so that they're not offended by them, but so that they don't turn into bullies themselves. And, if you're a victim yourself, just try to ignore it. Remember: Don't feed the trolls! [From: USA Today]

It's not clear what the exact problem is, but every major airport in the country is currently experiencing flight delays because of an FAA computer problem at a facility south of Atlanta. All that's being said is that the system that processes flight plans is having troubles, but that all flights currently in the air are fine and should land safely. Given that a single FAA computer failure has caused over 17,000 passengers to be stranded in the past, we're not too optimistic that these delays won't get worse and worse -- but then, nothing about air travel really inspires optimism lately, does it? [From: CNN]

It turns out that the tongue isn't tied to the spinal cord (had we paid better attention in Bio101, we'd have known that), which goes a long way towards keeping it unimpared in the event of spinal cord injury. A team at Georgia Tech is developing a tongue-based apparatus for disabled people that, which not as elegantly packaged as the GRAViTONUS device we've seen earlier, fashions a pointing device from a small tongue-mounted magnet and sensors near the cheeks. The team has promised interactivity way beyond what can be done with "sip and puff" input methods; think "mouth replaces mouse" and you've got the idea. Hopefully Mavis Beacon tongue-typing and the incorporation of haptic feedback won't be far behind. [From: Hack A Day]

Okay, the world has officially gone completely mad. We thought it was bad when all you had to worry about was 'Second Life' related kidnappings and condescending robots, but now there are online beauty pageants for nuns, we don't even know what to do with ourselves.

The pageant, which is most certainly not sanctioned by the Catholic Church, is the brainchild of Italian priest Antonio Rungi, who wanted to show that not all nuns are "old and dour." The Miss Sister 2008 contest will start in September on a blog run by Rungi. Nuns will fill out pageant profiles with information about their work as well as a photo. But don't get too scared -- the Miss Sister pageant won't have nuns parading around in bikinis, though it will be up to their discretion whether or not to wear the traditional habit and veil in the photographs.

Rungi told CNN in an interview that, "being ugly is not a requirement for becoming a nun. External beauty is gift from God, and we mustn't hide it." That may be true, Father, but isn't pride one of the seven deadly sins? [From: CNN]

Yes, you read that headline correctly. Somebody took the time to study cows using Google Earth and found out they tend to point north. It isn't just a coincidence, though – bovines actually have an innate sense of direction that's in tune with Earth's magnetic fields.

Scientists from Germany's University of Duisburg-Essen used Google satellite images to study hundreds of herds of the mammals in England, Ireland, India and the United States. They saw that two-thirds of the cows were oriented in a north-south direction, which supported their theory that the animals, like other breeds such as bees and whales, have tiny organs in their brains that contain magnetite, which is used like a compass.

So what's in it for the cows? According to the researchers, probably nothing. They say the sense may help cows find their way home or might just be a vestigial sense with no benefits. Other experts have confirmed with what you might have already suspected -- this study has probably no practical use, anywhere, ever, to anyone or any cow. [From: Telegraph.co.uk]

We've seen a lot of novel ways to wake up those of us reluctant to get out of bed in the morning. We've seen alarm clocks that annoy, soothe, and embarrass you to get moving, but we haven't seen anything that could induce the level of panic that would accompany having to defuse a bomb every morning.

The DangerBomb Alarm Clock startles you from your slumber with loud explosion sounds and forces you to "cut" (actually pull apart) a different colored wire every morning to "defuse" the bomb before it will stop going off.

The DangerBomb seems like a fun toy, but its certainly not safe to stash this in your carry on. [From: Unplugged]

Lebedev's design crew never seems to be short on surprisingly obvious and yet entirely fresh takes on every day objects, and the new Folderix flash drives are taking that ethic to entirely new and conveniently functional heights. The 4GB drives come in a myriad of colors, are available today and will run you a fairly steep $55. Literal folder design? Priceless.

[Via Electronista]

In 'Second Life,' players create elaborate avatars and participate in fanciful deeds (and misdeeds), often engaging in virtual romances that rarely survive longer than one of the game's many failed virtual banks. One relationship, though, was apparently a bit more serious -- or so thought North Carolina player Kimberly Jernigan, who attempted multiple real-world kidnappings of her in-game beau after their relationship ended.

After the two met in the real world the relationship apparently ended. Jernigan first showed up at the employer of her 52-year-old former virtual lover and attempted to kidnap him there at gunpoint. Failing there, she went to his home in Delaware two weeks later, broke in, and waited. He walked in the door and saw her pointing a gun with a laser pointer at his chest (it would later be found filled with BBs, not bullets). He fled the premises, and she did too apparently, later being apprehended at a Maryland rest stop. She's being held on charges of attempted kidnapping, burglary, and aggravated menacing. It all sounds like a typical day in the world of 'Second Life,' but obviously real world authorities weren't too interested in playing along. [From: cbs3.com]

Parents used to worry about kids sitting in front of the TV all day, but now it looks like the Internet has finally surpassed the boob-tube for time waster of choice with today's youth. According to DoubleClick Performics, a search marketing company, 83-percent of children between the ages of 10 and 14 spend at least 1 hour online each day. Only 68-percent of the same age group spent and equal amount of time watching TV.

The study found that children spent most of their time online researching products before making (or asking parents to make) a purchase, and hanging out on social networking sites like MySpace. In fact, 72-percent said they spent time on a social networking site, yet only 60 percent spent any time on blogs (looks like we're not pulling in the 10-14 year old crowd here at Switched).

It's no surprise that the Internet would eventually surpass television. The Internet offers more information and potential for distraction in an interactive form, while watching TV is a relatively passive activity. Besides, have you seen the crap that passes for TV these days? [From: NY Times]

For years, Diebold has embarrassed itself by claiming that obvious faults were actually not faults at all, and during the past decade or so, it mastered the act of pointing the finger. Now that it has ironically renamed itself Premier Election Solutions, it's finally coming clean.

According to spokesman Chris Riggall, a "critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point" has been part of the software for ten years. The flaw is on both optical scan and touchscreen machines, and while Mr. Riggall asserts that the logic error probably didn't ruin any elections (speaking of logic error...), the outfit's president has confessed to being "distressed" about the ordeal. More like "distressed" about the increasingly bleak future of his company.

[From: The Washington Post via Techdirt]

After collapsing like the 2007 New York Mets, the WB and its stable of shows is coming to the World Wide Web. TheWB.com is set to debut next week and will offer streaming episodes of hit shows like 'The Gilmore Girls,' 'The O.C.,' and 'Friends,' as well as original material developed for the site by McG and Josh Schwartz, the minds behind the Charlies Angels movies and 'The O.C.' respectively.

Warner Brothers is promoting the site with a Facebook application that lets users share content from the WB via the social networking site and connect with other users who watch the same shows on TheWB.com. A companion kids site is also launching at KidsWB.com that features Flash-based games and streaming episodes of cartoons like 'Batman,' 'Looney Tunes,' and 'The Flinstones.'

The WB must really be hoping that those kids moving away from the TV and online isn't just a passing fad. [From: Digital Media Wire]