New app helps Icelanders avoid accidental incest

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By JENNA GOTTLIEB and JILL LAWLESS

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) - You meet someone, there's chemistry, and then come the introductory questions: What's your name? Come here often? Are you my cousin?

In Iceland, a country with a population of 320,000 where most everyone is distantly related, inadvertently kissing cousins is a real risk.

A new smartphone app is on hand to help Icelanders avoid accidental incest. The app lets users "bump" phones, and emits a warning alarm if they are closely related. "Bump the app before you bump in bed," says the catchy slogan.

Some are hailing it as a welcome solution to a very Icelandic form of social embarrassment.

FULL story at link.



Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130418/DA5O1ET80.html

[Spitfire of ATJ]

1. I know someone who could have used that...

[Hippo_Tron]

2. He did, but Obi-Wan told him to put it away and use the force instead...

[Spitfire of ATJ]

3. Which led to a major flashback...

[FrodosPet]

4. Others who need the app

[davidpdx]

5. And to anyone related to...

the Palin family.

[dipsydoodle]

6. Sheep and goats both safe though

.

[Throd]

7. "Accidental Incest" is the name of my upcoming jazz album.

[Evasporque]

8. Meanwhile in the American south....

...enough said.

[octothorpe]

12. cousinhookup.com

[marshall]

9. How broadly are they defining incest?

Surely people aren't hooking up with siblings or even first cousins that they've never met.

[Scruffy Rumbler]

10. LOL....could of used this growing up....

I come from a large family that has had many large families each generation and we have been in the same area for generations. My mother's dating advice was "Always find out who their grandparents are!"

[jakeXT]

11. Useless?

It may also be of limited use. Currently the alarm only alerts users if they and their new acquaintance have a common grandparent, and most people already know who their first cousins are.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/04/18/business-iceland-geneaology-smartphone-app.html

[MillennialDem]

13. Disturbingly, we're all related. Now go make out with your significant other

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. Fewer people than Minneapolis, and they're all descended from a small founding population

that has been there for over 1000 years.

I bet it would be hard to find someone who ISN'T related to you at all.