Tech 9: Stories From The Week You Need To Read Right Now

You won't believe what happened this week.

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There was no bigger story this week than the launch of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. After years of rumor, speculation, and hopeful dreaming, the tech world’s most entertaining platforms slipped into a new world where games don’t have start screens anymore, consoles are constantly watching, and you can surveil anyone’s play time you want. Here are some of the week’s biggest stories, a number of which remind us the walled architecture of our play machines are often microcosms that reflect and intensify the limits of the new digital trappings we always seem to be stumbling through.

Michael Thomsen is Complex's tech columnist. He has written for Slate, The Atlantic, The New Inquiry, n+1, Billboard, and is author of Levitate the Primate: Handjobs, Internet Dating, and Other Issues for Men. He tweets often at @mike_thomsen.

Bill Gates Is Getting Into the Condom Business

Xbox One's Kinect Blocks Sex Searches on the Internet

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Writing for BuzzFeed, Joe Bernstein documents a lascivious lacuna in Xbox One's voice control features, which refuse to load explicit sex websites when used to surf the Internet. Aversions to explicit sexual content is nothing new for technology companies-all major console manufacturers refuse to certify games with an Adults Only rating and Apple has a notorious hostility toward openly sexualized apps. Xbox One's extension of these long running omissions only reminds just what a carefully sterilized environment convergence boxes end up being.

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Video Game Company Allegedly Turned Players Computers Into Secret Bitcoin Farms

'People Analytics' is Capturing Data on How You Work and Using It to Determine Who Gets Hired and Fired

Can Players Who Sell Game Items Sue Companies After Updates That Lessen Their Sales?

Sony Patents a Smart Wig to Allow Your Hair to Talk to the Internet

The Internet Rewrites Another Part of the English Language

Australian Scientist Working on Technology to Bring Extinct Creatures Back to Life

Feds Accuse Dread Pirate Roberts of Ordering Hits on Six People

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