(Photo: Trendhunter.com)

Are there any flesh and blood female human beings in the country of Japan that serve as actual girlfriends? There must be, but they certainly aren't getting much facetime on the Internet. Everywhere we turn, it seems, something inanimate is being manufactured, uploaded to the Internet with breathless excitement and automatically labeled a "girlfriend."

Here, take a stroll with us as we meet the girlfriends of Japan.

1. A disembodied mannequin robot head plucked from your nightmares that tells you if your breath stinks. (Hint: if this thing's your "girlfriend," it does.)

2. A rendering of a lady on a Nintendo DS that you bring to your wedding when marrying your actual girlfriend.

3. Really any anime girl capable of being loaded onto a TV or computer screen. Bonus points if you can pause it on a frame where it looks like she's eating, and then pretend to feed her real food.

4. A Domino's pizza app endorsed by Mr. Domino's himself.

5. Vending machines that sell "used school girl panties."

6. An eerily lifelike looking robot that spends her days emailing you love letters.

7. A not-at-all lifelike looking robot that actually just looks like a shitty transformer (hot).

8. A Nintendo DS video game named "Love Plus."

9. A fucking coat that will whisper in your ear, presumably telling you it's not weird at all to be in love with a coat.

10. And of course, a body pillow.

(Photo: Facebook)

Facebook Home has already passed 500,000 installations on Google Play a week after launch, which just goes to show people love to throw away their friends. [The Next Web]

A cadre of Silicon Valley companies, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft, are quietly trying to kill a privacy bill in California that would give residents the right to know how tech companies are using their personal information. [insideBayArea]

Japan wants to stymie access to TOR by asking ISPs to flat out block it. [Wired]

Comedy Central is planning to host a comedy festival on Twitter because this is what the future is like now. [New York Times]

How technology helped the FBI track down the Boston Marathon bombers. [Washington Post]

It's baaaaaaaack. [Valleywag]

Not our words! (Photo: Google)

Google's autocomplete function is both humorous and harmless, but as it turns out, it's getting the company in trouble in Japan. A Tokyo District Court ruled yesterday that the search giant must modify its results so it no longer incorrectly incriminates people for things they didn't do.

An unidentified man in Tokyo served Google with the lawsuit last year after it refused to edit the results when more than 10,000 suggestions appeared linking him to criminal activities and slandering his name. Google was then served with a temporary injunction, but abide by it since its search services operate outside of Japan. This week’s ruling is permanent, but the company can appeal it.

The man said the results contributed to him losing his job and being unable to get another, thus causing him mental and financial anguish. Though his claims that the search results led to his firing couldn't be proven, Google was still ordered to pay 300,000 yen ($3,100) for pain and suffering.

The unidentified Japanese man isn't the first to sue Google for its autocomplete results. In December 2011, Google was forced to pay $65,000 for defamatory search results about a French insurance company; this January an Australian man sued the company because it suggested users search "bankrupt" in conjunction with his name.

Google told CNet that it had no comment and is “studying” the ruling. No word if Jeremy Renner’s camp is thinking of a similar lawsuit.

(Photo: Rakuten)

Aching for a little skin-on-skin contact, but afraid to initiate anything with an actual living, breathing human being? Totally in love with your iPhone, but at a loss for how to express your affection? We've got the solution for you.

Introducing the hand-shaped iPhone "case," which is basically a case with a big hand glued to it so that when you hold your phone up to your ear, it feels like you're holding someone's hand. Aww.

The case--from Japan, natch--has a silicone hand affixed to the back, and it comes in both adult and child's sizes (side eye). Look, you can use it as a holder for your pens and lipgloss! Place it in your back pocket and it looks like you have a severed hand poking out of your jeans. Slip a diamond ring on its finger and you're effectively engaged to your iPhone case. It's every geek's dream.

(Photo: Ratuken)

(h/t Boing Boing)

This.

This is what our planet is all about.

These are 15 new reasons to embrace the future, all brought to us from an attempt to get Japanese people to eat rubbery disks of dough.

1. Domino's nail art.

(Screencap: YouTube)

2. The Domino's CEO trying to speak Japanese.

3. Man in bodysuit choreographing lady avatar moves.

(Screencap: YouTube)

4. Domino's CEO posing back to back and with peace signs next to anime avatar.

(Screencap: YouTube)

5. "Start the pizza stage live."

6. How much do you love us right now, Japan?

7. The number of takes it took the Domino's CEO to accomplish this level of enthusiasm.

(Screencap: YouTube)

8. "From the menu to the order, it looks very cute, just like Miku."

9. The Social Pizza Camera

10. Domino's CEO goes home and thinks to self, "Hmm, that Miku is really cute."

11. He begins writing fan fiction about Miku and pizza.

12. Sex scandal emerges following Domino's CEO's affair with Miku pillow.

13. World now consumes 12 billion Miku-o's™ pizzas a day.

14. Pizza becomes sentient.

15. The Domino's CEO finally merges with Miku.

(h/t Reddit)

(Photo: FabCafe)

Japan continues to be the world provider of magnificent oddities such as odor-eliminating underwear and a face for your face. Candy lovers, narcissists and candy loving narcissists will delight in the newest Japanese invention: a life size gummy bear of you.

Shortlist reports that a Japanese bistro called FabCafe will do a 3D scan of a customer's body, then use a mould to create a gummy bear that looks just like them. It all costs 6,000 yen, or about $65, which isn't too bad considering the horrifying face for your face will set you back $3k.

The promotion comes just in time for Japan's White Day, which is like a Valentine's Day do-over. Because nothing says "I love you" like a creepy gummy replica of your significant other.

(Photo: Real-f)

Have you ever thought, "I'm so handsome, I'd really like to make love to myself." Now you can come close.

An Otsu City, Japan-based company called REAL-f promises to make you the most lifelike face mask possible. Using a patented process called "Three-Dimension Photo Form," REAL-f uses photos to construct a mask with a skin-like texture that incorporates the smallest details of your face, from freckles to bloodshot eyes. The results? Terrifying.

"I can't tell you anymore how real The REALFACE is," stresses the REAL-f website, and they are definitely not lying. Remember that scene in Mrs. Doubtfire when Robin Williams had all that weird plaster stuff put on his face? This is like that but CREEPIER.

To make the masks impossibly lifelike, the team takes special requests such as "make it fair-complexioned" or "put moles." As for durability? REAL-f promises it's "Good enough." For just 300,000 yen (about $3,200), the REALFACE can be yours.

Use cases for REALFACE include scaring anyone ages Conception to Death, putting it on your significant other during sex so it's like you're boning yourself, and probably some other stuff.

Unfortunately the REALHEAD product, which is a big scary bust of your head, has been discontinued. Such a shame.

(Photo: Veterinary Practice News)

A clever hacker has dispatched Japan's National Police Agency on a fruitless chase to find him after he sent emails from various computers that included bomb threats against elementary schools. According to Wired, the agency has released a bounty of 3 million Yen (about $34,000) for the capture of the anonymous hacker, who has evaded them for months by sending the threatening messages using a computer virus that allows him to control terminals remotely.

Said hacker's latest mic drop moment? Attaching a memory card to the collar of a stray cat because that's just how hard he balls.

The hacker has been sending clues and quizzes to journalists across the country, engaging them in a cat-and-mouse game (heh) to track down his whereabouts. Police obtained a set of email clues on Saturday and used them to determine the location of the felonious feline. The memory card reportedly contains special information regarding iesys.exe, the virus the hacker has used to remotely control computers and send the threats without fear of his location being uncovered.

We eagerly await the indie film that will immortalize this convergence of all things Internet--starring perennial investor Ashton Kutcher as the cat, natch.

Say hello to the alien passenger in your uterus! (Screencap via)

The list of use cases for 3D printing just keeps growing. Making the rounds once more, this time courtesy of the New York Daily News, is an offering from a Japanese company that will sell proud parents-to-be a 3D printed model of their in-womb fetus. The mouse-sized creation comes encased in clear, baby-bump-shaped resin.

Should make for a great paperweight, and/or nightmare fuel for your toddler.

Says the News:

"As it is only once in a lifetime that you are pregnant with that child, we received requests for these kind of models from pregnant women who... do not want to forget the feelings and experience of that time," said Tomohiro Kinoshita of FASOTEC, the company offering the service.

A mere $1,200, the "Shape of an Angel" package gets you both the model and an additional mini that "could be a nice adornment to a mobile phone, he added." In case you wanted to give all the other mothers something else to cluck disapprovingly over.

Starting in December, the company will offer a face-only version for half the price.

Somewhere in Mississippi, a pro-life activist just dashed to his computer to order a Replicator 2.

(Photo: The Escapist)

Love comes in all shapes, sizes and pixels. With emotionally intelligent robots on the way and virtual reality characters capable of catering to your every whim and desire, it's not difficult to see how the more introverted among us might find themselves in love with a 2D heroin. In Japan, there's an entire culture surrounding the dudes-in-love-with-inanimate-objects meme: remember that New York Times pillow story?

Still, when you finally resign yourself to marrying a meatbag, you should probably surrender your virtual girlfriend before any jealousy can fester. After all, what human could ever hope to live up to the perfection of an anime character?

It's inadvisable, however, to invite your virtual girlfriend to your wedding, which is exactly what an Otaku groom in Japan did. In love with a dating sim from the site Love Plus, the man--who works at Comiket, natch--even reserved a place setting for his virtual girlfriend; he placed the handheld Nintendo DS displaying his digital lover onto the table among the china and fancy silverware so that she could enjoy the nuptials with the rest of the real life guests.

According to The Escapist, the man's wife--who initially seemed okay with the weird virtual threesome--soon decided that in order to live happily ever after, she had to destroy the virtual girlfriend. Thus, she took a hammer and smashed the shit out of the Nintendo DS, taking the life of the poor Love Plus sim. The groom, perhaps resigned to his fate of living the rest of his life with an actual human being, joined in, reportedly with "tears in his eyes."

Ah, Japan. You continue to be the best.