"So I was thinking we could go back to my place?" (Screengrab: YouTube)

If there's one thing that will make weird engineering students less awkward, it's more time spent in front of a computer.

That seems to be the idea behind MIT's new My Automated Conversation Coach, or MACH. The software provides a digitally animated pal for you to interact with, VentureBeat reports. The program then analyzes eye contact, facial expressions, speech patterns and behavior. 

And as if the thought of a socially awkward person practicing for a job interview by talking to his computer wasn't heart-breaking enough, MIT is recommending MACH to calm first-date nerves, too.

But hey, this could be a good sign for computer nerds everywhere -- the path to a fully digital girlfriend just got a little bit shorter.

In the future, this is how we'll unlock phones. (Photo: Getty)

Bluetooth, Google Glass, FaceTime -- all of these things can make you look like an idiot in public. But when it comes to doltish behavior in the name of technology, there just may be a new sheriff in town.

Google has just patented "facial unlock technology" that will enable users to access gadgets by making a series of facial expressions, according to Engadget. The patent claims a method through which the tech apparatus takes two photos of its user. The user must then make those two faces in order to unlock the phone.

So your new password, instead of that high-security birth-month-birth-date PIN you've been rocking, may involve raised eyebrow followed by a raspberry. And here we thought being caught mid-selfie was embarrassing.

[H/T Engadget]

Even this avi counts as content. (Photo: Twitter)

"Oh my god, I should totally have my own reality show." It's something bland people have been saying since the dawn of Bravo, but few have acted on it. Lucky for them, one trail-blazing social media CEO is bravely chronicling his existence in a deluded quest for content.

Gary Vaynerchuk of VaynerMedia has repurposed a perfectly innocent employee to "shadow my life," he told Forbes. The employee will follow him around all day and record his every statement and move, like a lesser Beyoncé assistant. He thinks this is a trend that will catch on like wildfire within the year.

Why would he do this? Because he's got an itch only content can scratch. Mr. Vaynerchuk worships at the throne of content. If there's one thing he feels strongly about, it's content. Here are a few things he told Forbes. Sing it, Gary:

"Content is the cost of entry to relevance in today's society," he says.

Exactly when does content turn into relevance? After I enter relevance, is it possible to exit? What if people aren't content with the content?

"I've built infrastructure around me to become a greater content provider," he says ... "There's now someone in my life pestering me for content."

He feels this kind of arrangement will become common, most likely among the rich and deranged.

"There are going to be 500 to 5,000 people at this time next year who employ a full-time content person," he says ... "The only reason I got to the level of affording a full-time content person is that when I couldn't [afford it], I still put out more content than most."

But content from 500 to 5,000 people -- that's a lot of content. Things could become contentious. What if you don't have a content person to contain all your content?

"You have to get into the content game,"says Mr. Vaynerchuk.

Are you still reading this content? Because you should really be out producing your own content.

"If you can afford to, like I now can, you produce content for Vine, Medium, SoundCloud, Instagram, Tumblr, and Pinterest," he says.

So... If you can afford a cell phone?

"This is stupid but not below Gary, at all," one of Mr. Vaynerchuk's employees told Betabeat. "How long before he has his 'personal content creator' Vine him while on the toilet? The answer is too terrifying to think about."

UPDATE: Turns out we won't have to wait with baited breath for that toilet video. A tipster alerted us to this Vine (NSFW obvi), in which Mr. Vaynerchuk says, "Dani, the craziest place I've vined is this," followed by a shot of him chillin on the porcelain throne. Nice blue undies!

Cool text. (Photo: Hashgram)

People are increasingly acting like complete assholes to each other online, according to a new study conducted by corporate training firm VitalSmarts. Nearly 80 percent of respondents said they believe people’s rude behavior on social media is getting worse, and that they themselves have “no qualms” about acting like a jerk online.

Meanwhile, 19 percent of survey takers said they have blocked, unsubscribed or unfriended a person after an online argument, while one in five of the 3,000 people who responded said they have reduced IRL contact following an e-brawl.

Joseph Grenny, a co-chairman from VitalSmarts, believes etiquette online hasn't yet caught up to those of in person principles. He said the lack of peer pressure (a.k.a judgement) online is the root of why people think they can get away with being mean.

"What really is surprising is that so many people disapprove of this behavior but people are still doing it. Why would you name call online but never to that person's face?" said Grenny to Reuters.

Because it's easier, you jerk.

Shut it down. (Photo: Flickr)

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has laid down the law on what his 35,000-strong force can post on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter.

According to a memo obtained by the New York Daily News, Mr. Kelly handed down the iron-fisted rules in a three page announcement declaring that neighborhood precincts can no longer create new profiles on social media platforms. He also told cops that they could no longer “disclose or allude” to their rank and must stop from posting pictures of themselves in their uniforms unless they’re at an official ceremony.

“Members of the service utilizing personal social media sites are to exercise good judgement and demonstrate the same degree of professionalism expected of them while performing their official duties,” the order reads as scooped by the NYDN.

The NYPD is well aware of just how damning online evidence can be. The department has made a recent push into social media surveillance, regularly using it to tamp down on illicit gun activity in Brooklyn. Recently, however, Mr. Kelly's officers have been the one caught red-handed on social networks. A rash of stories have exposed staffers as bigots for spewing vitriolic comments on Twitter and Facebook.

Back in August, 17 officers faced discipline for posting racially charged comments regarding participants at the 2011 West Indian American Day Parade by referring to them as “savages” and “animals.”

A police training expert labeled Mr. Kelly’s rules as “unauthorized censorship” to the Daily News, but we like to think of it as a necessary evil.

Rude girls. (Photo: MyCentralNJ.com)

Fourteen years after the movie's release and millenials have already forgot the first rule of Fight Club. The latest blabbermouths to blow their cover hail from Bridgewater-Raritan High School in New Jersey, where students have been posting and promoting their videos in a Facebook group.

Police are investigating a page titled “BRHS School Fights,” a two week old group that’s garnered more than 1,000 likes. The user-submitted videos posted, which are usually recorded from student’s cell phones, include a brutal brawl between two girls pulling each other's hair in a 20-second fight. Another video shows two boys violently beating each other up during a lunch period.

The videos have since been pulled from the page.  However, social media rubberneckers have bombarded the page asking where they can view the videos.

School officials don’t “have jurisdiction” over social media and don’t know who created the page. So instead, they’re calling on the public to apply pressure against the unknown page administrator for it be deleted. A police spokesperson told MyCentralJersey.com it has launched an investigation.

The number of fights at Bridgewater-Raritan High School has spiked to seven in the first two weeks of March, immediately after the Facebook page was created. A school official called it “unusually high” since there have only been five fights recorded since Sept. 2012.

But the police investigation isn’t fazing the page’s creator. Earlier today, the person posted a status updated proclaiming that they would “rather stay anonymous then be known as the idiot who got caught.” A few hours later, the indignant administrator compared the “haters” to the bullies who push kids into killing themselves…or something

To all my haters I didn't get caught and stay off my page if you don't like it. Posting threats and making fun of me makes you just as bad as the bullies that push kids into committing suicide.

Sounds like the Facebook fight page should have some new content coming soon.

(Photo: Instagram/cara_ra_ra)

Perhaps the FDNY should incorporate social media etiquette into its intense training sessions. The department and its well-connected aspirants have been responsible for a rash of racist tweets recently. This time it involves 34-year-old EMS Lieutenant Timothy Dluhos who recently went tirade involving racist, anti-semitic and anti-Asian remarks on his since deleted Twitter account.

The New York Post revealed that Dluhos’ Twitter account was a hotbed for nasty remarks, including one instance where he joked about giving up racial remarks for Lent and then added “Jesus that didn’t [last] long...F-ken chinks cant drive.”

Other tweets from his profile, which apparently included pictures of Hitler in its gallery, featured an image of his toddler wearing sagging pants captioned: “my son thinks he’s one of ‘those people.'"  He also called Mayor Bloomberg "King Heeb” and “King Jew,” so there goes our happy Passover vibe.

When the tabloid approached Mr. Dluhos on Friday, he fell to the ground crying.

“There has got to be a lot worse out there than me,” he insisted.

“My life is ruined. Oh, my God,” Dluhos wailed. “I’m so sorry.”

Mr. Dluhos also told the Post that his stepfather is Jewish so obviously he’s not racist or anti-Semitic. He's just a sensitive guy . . . who wears a jacket with the words "Bad Lieutenant" embroidered on it to work.

“I’ve seen strangers shot and killed. I’ve seen families torn apart by violence. It’s a damn shame that gang members ruin it for hardworking, struggling people,” he cried.

This kind of public bigotry is getting to be something of a pattern. Last week, a FDNY commissioner's son embarked on a Twitter-based racist tirade lambasting Jews, women, President Obama supporters--even dissing Martin Luther King Jr.

If you've ever sought professional advice from someone who puts "social media guru" or "marketing ninja" in their Twitter bio, you know just how little some experts add to the discussion. "Everyone is offering best-practice advice, optimization strategies, etc. It's about time someone started offering up the very opposite," Scooter Ramirez said, in an email to Betabeat.

Mr. Ramirez is not his real name, a fact which he felt compelled to remind us, but rather the pseudonymous handle of the cofounder of @WorstFastAgency, a jokey site that promises, "Bad advice for $1. Within 12 hours or less."

"A lot of bad advice is given as 'good advice' and ends up being harmful in the end anyways," Mr. Ramirez explained, pointing us to Governor Patterson's "smear campaign" against Caroline Kennedy. "He paid a lot of money for a consulting firm to tell him to do this."

Although some suspected the idea was making fun of World's Fastest Agency, a newly-launched New York consultancy that promises tag lines and campaigns with 24 hours, Mr. Ramirez (don't forget, not his real name!) said it was "straight up inspired by a homeless guy who sold me some bad advice for $1 on the street in NYC."  Apparently, Mr. Ramirez wasn't the only beneficiary of that man's wisdom.

@WorstFastAgenyc is based out of the Research Park Triangle area of North Carolina. Mr. Ramirez said he has some "experience in digital marketing, tech, etc." He was also "once in the military, was once a musician, once started a nonprofit that got some national attention."

Not one to ignore an attention whore, we decided to get some answers to common digital conundrums. @WorstFastAgency obliged in customary 140 character format:

1. What should I do if a customer complains about my company on Twitter?
Run smear campaign to attack customer's credibility. Frame culprit as a @mittromney voter, works every time.

2. How should I get more Facebook fans?
Offer savings bonds to all who like your page on a certain day, then stage fire at office, claim bonds burned, apologize to new fans.

3. What should I do if I accidentally sext the wrong person on Snapchat?
Resend to make it appear like you did it on purpose. Its only a mistake if you can't convince people otherwise.

4. Say I have a crush on someone I only know through social media, what's the best way to get their attention and see if they're interested?

Create @kickstarter campaign, offer perks for tweeting to crush including your twitter and "#interested?". 30-day campaign. #crowdfundcrush

5. What's the proper etiquette for cellphone use when you're out with friends?
Collect friend's cellphones (by force if necessary), use their minutes/data/texts, conserve your own.

Pretty awful suggestions, so consider us another satisfied customer?

Tech companies weren't the only ones up in arms after Twitter walled up its API. As Nieman Lab noted back in August, when the company said they just want to "deliver a consistent Twitter experience,” developers for newsrooms like the Washington Post and news apps like Storify and Instapaper had a collective panic attack. For services like the Post's @MentionMachine, which tracks presidential candidates on Twitter, developers were forced to rework the front end in order to match Twitter's style of tweet embeds.

To clear the air--and perhaps to encourage newsroom tech teams to keep developing on its platform (as if social media dependent-traffic hounds had a choice anymore!)--Twitter is hosting "Office Hours" in New York City next week. In an email announcing the event, the company said the session was prompted by a flood of questions and concerns from news developers.

The sign-up page for the two hour session on Thursday, October 25th, promises that members from the Twitter Platform team will be on hand to answer questions. It also solicits input from attendees to see whether the confusion lies with its REST API, Search API, Streaming API, or Twitter for websites. According to the presumably "consistent" button at the top, the sign-up page has yet to be tweeted.

Screengrab

App.net has generously created a $5 per month plan and lopped $14 off its yearly membership fee. That means people with $36 to spare on a Twitter lookalike can now snag their very own App.net handle and bragging rights to spending $36. Or $60, if you opt for the $5 monthly plan.

As The Next Web notes, members who ponied up the original (and infamous) $50 yearly fee won't receive a refund, just extra months on their current plan.

In a blog post announcing the changes, App.net founder Dalton Caldwell explained that since App.net is nearing "the 20,000 user level" after predicating the original pricing model on just 10,000 users, such "momentum and scale" justified the updates to price structure.

"Our stated goal for hitting a 'critical mass' was 10,000 paying members," Mr. Caldwell wrote, "Fortunately, the market has told us 'yes', and then some."

At the end of his post Mr. Caldwell concluded:

We fundamentally believe that 3rd-party developers will innovate faster, create better applications on more platforms, and make more users happy than any single company could. As the platform matures, and the community and app selection grows, we believe that the value and appeal of App.net can only increase. Remember: we are just getting started.

App.net has been criticized as a "country club" and called evidence of "white flight" from Facebook and other social networks. It has also been called "the worst," by me, just now.