Motorola’s has been building up hype for the Moto X, its first smartphone since Google bought the company. And the marketing campaign has been pretty heavy with its use of sexual double entendres.

For example, this afternoon Motorola tweeted out a photo of the phone with a customized back casing with the message, “Yep. We’ve got wood.” (No explanation necessary.)

But once the Internet started picking up on all the risqué humor, things started changing on Motorola’s site that’s dedicated to the Moto X.

that “Motorola replaced the penis joke on the Moto X page with a … goldilocks reference?”

Here’s the original image:

And here’s what’s on the site now:

A stranger double entendre.

A similar thing happened with another image.

To advertise Moto X’s touch-free voice control, Motorola wrote “Touch each other, not phones. Moto X responds to your voice, no touching necessary. (That’s what she said.)”

Yes, it actually threw in a “that’s what she said” joke just so consumers knew that the prior sentence was laced with sexual implications.

Click to enlarge: 

Now Motorola took the “That’s what she said” line off the image online to be less explicit.

Who wants to read between the lines?

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Yelp’s Mobile Strategy Is Paying Off (Forbes)
Yelp’s mobile division posted a strong quarter, according to the company’s latest earnings report. The Yelp mobile app user base climbed to 10.4 million users. The influx of mobile users, and clicks, has local businesses flocking to the service. The share of local advertisements on Yelp coming from mobile devices grew to 40% from 26% just two quarters ago. Read >

Appeals Court Rules Government Can Track Phone Location Data Without A Warrant (Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. government will not need a warrant in order to track cell phone location data. A U.S. Court of Appeals ruled, in a 2-1 result, that the government can approach carriers for user cell phone location data going back 60 days and can do so without having to establish probable cause.  The ruling broaches again the difficult issue of cell phone user privacy, and what data can be collected by the authorities without court approval. Read >

An Overview Of Mobile Wallets (M For Mobile)
M For Mobile released a comprehensive infographic detailing the current state of the mobile wallet. It covers worldwide statistics, where the mobile wallet is in terms of money, how consumers currently perceive mobile wallets, and predictions for the future of the mobile wallet. Read >

Google Play Exceeds App Store In Downloads, But Not In Monetization (App Annie)
App Annie released its Market Index report for the second quarter of 2013, detailing downloads and other app store insights. Their data revealed Google Play outpaced Apple’s App Store in downloads for the quarter. However, the App Store still has a big advantage over Google Play in monetization. Downloads from the App Store generated 2.3-times more revenue than downloads from Google Play. Read >

Android Gets Microsoft Office, But Not For Tablets (The Verge)
Microsoft released its Office software for phones running Android version 4.0 or higher. Interestingly, Microsoft has no plans to optimize the software for tablets, and is encouraging Android tablet users who want Office functionality to make use of Office Web Apps. Read >

Nintendo Reports Disastrous Wii U Sales (Statista)
Nintendo’s newer Wii model, the Wii U, had a disappointing start and its sales fell off to just 160,000 units last quarter. Nintendo already competes with gaming console giants like Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s console. But the Wii U’s sales drop-off is also further evidence of the rise of mobile gaming and how consumer gaming habits are shifting away from the TV and to mobile devices. Entertainment consoles like Wii U compete indirectly with TV-streaming set top boxes like Apple TV, Roku, and Google’s new Chromecast dongle. Read >

Apple Opens iMessage Spam Reporting Tool (9 to 5 Mac)
Apple is releasing a tool ahead of its iOS 7 update that will allow users to block unwanted iMessages, or spam, coming through over-the-top mobile messaging services.  Read >

Top Google Exec Emphasizes Google’s New Direction (Quartz)
Sundar Panchai, head of Android and Chrome at Google, claimed, “Our goal is to put computing everywhere.” It’s a bit of a shift from the company’s official .  Google is trying to move beyond the Web and is fully aware of the importance of pumping out computing hardware, and how devices are an essential element in data collection. Read >

Google Now Tests Hyperlocal Neighborhood News (The Verge)
Google’s personal assistant software is running tests that will pump “hyperlocal” news to users. The local news feeds will be tailored based on the user’s current location, interests, and the time of day. Read >

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Following yesterday’s fresh revelations of the NSA program XKeyscore, which can pull up the content of email with the simple input of an address and date range, the White House used its podium today to slap Russia and label leaker Edward Snowden as neither a “dissident” or a “whistleblower.”

Russia has granted Snowden one year of asylum, finally ending the legal circus that trapped him in an airport for five weeks. That goat rodeo is over. Through Press Secretary Jay Carney, the White House was not hard to parse in its response to the decision, calling the move “extremely disappointing” and viewing Snowden as a felon that should be returned home for castigation. When do we simply point a finger and laugh?

This matters, as it underscores the current administration’s continued view of what constitutes whistleblowing or dissent. By fair estimate, Snowden’s actions fall under the rubric of either term. In fact, he manages to embody both at once: He used information to blow the whistle on government action that he considered to be a misdeed, and he acted out a firm act of dissent. Regardless of your view of Snowden and his actions, this cannot be denied.

What Snowden revealed about the NSA and its various programs have made liars out of many in the highest levels of our government repeatedly. It has sparked international dialogue on data surveillance and forced the NSA itself to explain itself. It has raised the profile of personal privacy to its proper place: as key to a free society.

What I must point out is the incredible mendacity and bad faith that the federal government has consistently employed to obfuscate and lie to the electorate. To put this into perspective, here’s TechCrunch yesterday on the XKeyscore program that is the most recent revelation via Edward Snowden’s leaked information:

Further leaks have revealed an NSA project called XKeyscore that, with a few keystrokes, can give a data analyst access to nearly everything a user does on the Internet – from chat sessions to email to browsing habits. [...]

The system is available to NSA analysts and can be accessed without a warrant. According to training manuals produced in 2010, the system requires analysts to request data on certain individuals. The system then scans traffic beginning and terminating in the United States using keyword searches. The system can also search Facebook comments, as well as other social media data.

The NSA responded to the leak with something so frail that you wonder if its original progenitor felt dirty penning the words: “Allegations of widespread, unchecked analyst access to NSA collection data are simply not true. Access to XKeyscore, as well as all of NSA’s analytic tools, is limited to only those personnel who require access for their assigned tasks.” Well then. I feel fine.

Either we have a right to digital privacy as a component to our larger right to personal privacy, or we do not. It’s my estimation that we do. This is the precise discussion we need to have. And thanks to the dissenting whistleblower Snowden, we are having it.

Sorry, Carney, but you’re off base on this one.

Top Image Credit: 

Pinterest, and specifically the act of “pinning,” is driving people into stores and influencing purchase decisions.

Recent data distributed by Vision Critical and highlighted in the Harvard Business Review found that 21% of Pinterest users had bought an item in a store after pinning, repinning, or liking the item on the site. 

Vision Critical describes this as part of a wider phenomenon it calls “reverse showrooming,” in which consumers search or browse products online and then enter the physical shop to make a final purchase.

(This contrasts with showrooming, which implies handling a product in stores, only to price-compare and buy it for less money online.)

Vision Critical’s study adds credence to the notion that social media has finally emerged as a commerce-driver.

At BI Intelligence, Business Insider’s paid subscription service, we recently analyzed over 15 datasets culled from a variety of sources to probe the viability of social media as a commerce and retail-driver. We published our insights in a recent report, “The New Art Of Social Commerce: How Brands And Retailers Are Converting Tweets, Pins, And Likes Into Sales.”

Subscribers also gain access to over 100 in-depth reports and hundreds of charts and datasets on mobile, social, and their impact across industries, including retail. 

But how did pinned items originally come to the attention of consumers?  Google, email, blogs? Pinterest itself? 

Vision Critical found that 50% of the items caught users’ attention while they were casually browsing Pinterest itself (24% on a stranger’s boards, 19% on a friend’s, and 7% on a retailer’s). Another 10% came from Pinterest searches. These numbers are a testament to Pinterest’s power as a kind of user-generated digital retail catalog that shoppers flip through for ideas. 

Unlike traditional showrooming, which is spurred by e-commerce giants like Amazon and eBay, reverse showrooming seems to have its roots in social media and social commerce: friends’ and strangers’ recommendations can inspire shoppers’ purchase decisions, offline and online.  

No surprise then that Nordstrom is testing displays that highlight Pinterest-trending items on in-store displays. 

To access BI Intelligence’s full report, The New Art Of Social Commerce: How Brands And Retailers Are Converting Tweets, Pins, And Likes Into Sales, sign up for a free trial subscription here. Subscribers also gain access to over 100 in-depth reports on social and mobile, and hundreds of charts and datasets. 

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Freelance journalist , a former music contributor at Forbes and freelancer, received a at her Long Island home from six agents from a joint terrorism task force on Wednesday morning.

In March Google reported that the FBI monitors the Web for potential terrorist activity. It appears this situation is a case of that task force in action.

Catalano said she had researched pressure cookers and her husband was looking for a backpack, a combination of terms that raises flags in the wake of bombings at the Boston Marathon on April 15 that killed three people and injured more than 260.

In a post describing the incident, Catalano writes: 

Mostly I felt a great sense of anxiety. This is where we are at. Where you have no expectation of privacy. Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list. Where you have to watch every little thing you do because someone else is watching every little thing you do.

Catalano says that the agents told her husband that ”they do this about 100 times a week. And that 99 of those visits turn out to be nothing.”

Here are the tweets: 

— Michele Catalano ()

— Michele Catalano ()

— Michele Catalano ()

After the initial scare, Catalano made light of the situation.

I keep thinking those six guys from the joint terrorism task force are sitting around talking about what a mess my house is.

— Michele Catalano ()

Nevertheless, judging by the last two lines of her blog post, the circumstantial gravitas has stayed with her:

All I know is if I’m going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I’m not doing it online.

I’m scared. And not of the right things.

SEE ALSO: New NSA Leaks Show How Easily The Government Can See Almost Everything You Do On The Internet

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