Lexus has announced plans to roll out a system that will allow the company to send audio messages to its cars, which most people immediately realized meant we should get ready for spam in our cars. It's pretty obvious that's what Lexus is thinking when it says things like: "messages can be highly targeted, such as tailored for those who have a specific vehicle type or who live in a particular ZIP code." However, the company is obviously sensitive to the spam issue, saying that "We're not going to barrage customers with marketing messages," and noting that some may not want this: "Many of our owners enjoy their car as a cocoon." The whole thing sounds like a trial balloon idea to see how people react, and so far it doesn't sound good. You could see some potentially useful situation -- such as in the event of a recall, but the likelihood of someone in marketing getting a "brilliant idea" for some extra revenue and pissing off a lot of people just seems too high.

An anonymous reader sends in word of yet another highly questionable trademark infringement lawsuit, as Toyota, makers of Lexus vehicles has filed a lawsuit against a nude model, who goes by the name Alexus Winston (link is probably NSFW, depending on your work environment). As the folks at Fleshbot note: "Lexus is a line of luxury automobiles put out by Toyota. Alexus Winston is a naked model." Anyone want to volunteer to be the moron in a hurry to prove that it's rather easy to tell the difference between the two?