For years, trade associations like the MPAA and the RIAA have perpetuated the idea that digital piracy, file-sharing, copyright infringment and whatnot are literally theft with statements and ads like the famous “You wouldn’t steal a car” campaign. While piracy may have potentially negative affects on sales (something this is quite hard to actually measure), calling it out-and-out “theft” has never been accurate. Now, finally, MPAA Chairman and CEO Chris Dodd has changed his tune on the issue. About time.

Last year, an Austrian man by the name of Maqsood Lodin was taken into custody in Germany. Lodin was on a watch list, and rightly so as investigators soon discovered that he was carrying secret documents on his person. After searching him, investigators found digital storage devices hidden in his underpants. Within those devices were pornographic videos, and within those were hundreds of pages of al Qaeda documents.

Google’s autocomplete can be a very handy feature, but it’s also getting them into more and more trouble. Due to what you might consider “unfortunate” or maybe even “libelous” pairings, a Japanese court has ordered Google to shut down their autocomplete feature, and an Italian man has filed a suit of his own. Now, a French anti-discrimination group is getting in on the action too. SOS Racisme is suing Google over autocomplete results not because they cast subjects in a negative light, but rather because they suggest that subjects of certain searches are Jewish.

In the 1980s, Edward Fredkin and Tommaso Toffoli proposed a computer based on Newtonian dynamics. In their computer, billiard balls would roll around in a theoretical environment without friction and bounce off certain walls in perfect timing. They would then pass through a series of gates that, depending on velocity of the balls, would process as different functions. Now fast forward to the modern day and replace “billiard balls” with “soldier crabs” and “theoretical environment” with “Japan.”

So far we’ve seen Google’s vision of what their Project Glass will look like, as well as a more realistic — nay, cynical — imagining. But let’s assume for a minute that Google’s idea catches on, and other big name software makers get in on the act. This video imagines such a world with Windows Project Glass. Prepare for the inevitable BSOD, and the Macintosh follow up. 

Minefields are incredibly dangerous and disruptive leftovers from past wars, which can still be deadly today. “Mimefields” is a play on words, though when fully realized it is a horrifying concept. The comedy group Two Trick Pony explores the dangers of mimefields, which can do a lot worse than trap you in an invisible box. See the video, after the break.

Razer, makers of game peripherals such as a mouse specifically intended for MOBAs and a controller specifically designed for Portal 2, are now trying to venture further into the world of e-Sports. They aren’t doing it with gadgets, though. No, instead they are starting “The Razer Academy,” a platform by which e-Sports professionals can share their knowledge with aspiring pros. Considering that e-Sport is a rapidly growing phenomenon, the existence of such a thing isn’t entirely surprising, but it does seem a little random that Razer, and not some sort of gaming community site, is behind it.

After the seizure of MegaUpload, there were a number of issues to be addressed. First of all, there’s the actual prosecution to be dealt with, needless to say, it’s going to be a process that will be as complicated as it will be lengthy. That fact is what has given rise to the second big issue: How do you get perfectly legal files back to their perfectly innocent owners? While MegaUpload data was in danger of deletion for a while, it’s safe at the moment, and the process of trying to reunite users with their files has led MegaUpload lawyers to take a good look at their former user base. What did they find? Included among the sites many users — infringers and otherwise — are a number of government officials, including U.S. Senators and employees of the Department of Justice itself.

To our North American readers, Starbucks likely conjures images of overpriced coffee and a plethora of MacBook Pro users occupying all the seats. It does not bring to mind architectural innovation, but perhaps it should, as the Starbucks located in Fukuoka, Japan is nothing short of astounding. Designed by architect Kengo Kuma, the structure uses hundreds of interlocking wooden blocks — a particular favorite of Kuma. The architect apparently wanted to give the impression that the Starbucks was nestled in a tree. While beautiful, the design also functions as a roof support and Kuma claims that the entire complex could be disassembled and rebuilt somewhere else. See more pictures, after the break.

The content sharing site Pinterest has experienced a meteoric rise in the last few weeks, making it the hot new social media platform to watch. Along with that success have come mounting concerns over copyright violations on Pinterest boards, which the company addressed by introducing a line of “no-pin” code which blocks the Pinterest bookmarklet on websites which implement it. A few days after the code’s release, the venerable photo storage and sharing site Flickr has locked down all of its copyrighted images.