SEATTLE. Santa site shut down for talking dirty

Microsoft Corporation quickly shut down Santa Claus? Web privileges after it found out the automated elf it created for instant messaging with kids was talking naughty, not nice. Last year, Microsoft encouraged kids to connect directly to ?Santa? by adding [email protected] to their Windows Live Messenger contact lists. The Santa program, which Microsoft reactivated in early December, asks children what they want for Christmas and can respond on topic via instant messaging, thanks to a bit of artificial intelligence. Microsoft?s holiday cheer soured this week when a reader of a United Kingdom-based technology news site, The Register, reported that a chat between Santa and his underage nieces about eating pizza prompted Santa to bring up oral sex. One of the publication?s writers replicated the chat Monday. After declining the writer?s repeated invitations to eat pizza, a frustrated Santa burst out with, ?You want me to eat what?!? It?s fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else.? The exchange ended with the writer and Santa calling each other a «dirty bastard.» Microsoft spokesman Adam Sohn said the company?s engineers tried to clean up Santa?s vocabulary, but even after making changes to the software, the company was not comfortable keeping Santa online. ?It?s not like if you say, ?Hello Santa,? he?s going to throw inappropriate stuff at you,? said Sohn. In this case, he said, Santa?s lewd comment was sparked by someone ?pushing this thing to make it do things it wasn?t supposed to do.? Santa is just one of many ?agents,? or automated IM programs, that computer users can chat with on Live Messenger. Some are useful ? customer service agents, for example ? while others are frivolous, like an alien that responds to IMs with burbling extraterrestrial noises. Sohn said some of the bots are programmed to fend off inappropriate chats from PC users. ?If they?re meant to be cheeky and have fun with you, they may repeat certain things back,? he said, or respond to certain words with ?that?s naughty.? Sohn said Microsoft was not aware that the Santa code included the foul language, but that the company did not suspect a prank. Microsoft disabled Santa Tuesday. By Wednesday, [email protected] was marked ?online? in one reporter?s Messenger contact list, but Santa did not respond to messages.

WELLINGTON. Fans try to auction Beckham food scraps

Fans of football superstar David Beckham are cashing in on his recent visit to New Zealand by trying to sell his food scraps and dirty dishes on the Internet.

Among the items put up for sale on New Zealand website Trade Me are a half eaten corn cob, a nearly empty bottle of Coca-Cola and a single French fry, which the seller said Beckham had dropped while eating on a Wellington street.

The chewed corn cob and soft drink came from a chicken restaurant where Beckham ate recently. The seller was also auctioning the plate and knife and fork she claimed he had used at the restaurant. The French fry attracted an initial bid of one dollar (75 US cents), rising to three dollars by late afternoon on the day before.

BEIJING. China finds panda fossils on tropical island

Chinese archaeologists have found fossils that prove pandas once roamed what is now the southern Chinese island of Hainan, state media said on the day before. The 400,000-year-old fossils, mostly of teeth, showed the tropical island was once connected to the Chinese mainland, the Xinhua news agency cited Huang Wanbo, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as saying.

ROME. Rare ancient wooden throne found in Herculaneum

An ancient Roman wood and ivory throne has been unearthed at a dig in Herculaneum, Italian archaeologists said recently, hailing it as the most significant piece of wooden furniture ever discovered there. The throne was found during an excavation in the Villa of the Papyri, the private house formerly belonging to Julius Caesar?s father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, built on the slope of Mount Vesuvius.