Nothing on this beat finished this week, so the running order is the open threads.

RUNNING ORDER

· Emily — Lovense announces a four-to-eight-thousand-dollar AI companion doll that ships in 2027 and remembers your conversations (Engadget, Interesting Engineering, NewsBytes) [PROVEN]

· The fourth analyst — a fourth research firm lands $19.28bn away from the third on the same year, on the same market (The Business Research Company, Grand View Research, SNS Insider, Fortune Business Insights) [PROVEN]

· Settled — a wrongful-death suit against an AI-companion maker settles with terms undisclosed, and the FTC's companion-chatbot orders pass a year with no report (CBS News, Gulf News, Federal Trade Commission, MLex) [PROVEN / REPORTED where marked]

· The enforcement is the point — San Francisco's 28-day deadline for the app stores lapses with no follow-up anyone published, and Texas starts carding every app-store user (TechCrunch, Engadget, 9to5Mac, Texas Tribune, SCOTUSblog) [PROVEN]

· Six hundred — a sex-toy maker tells 600 customers a hacker read their inbox, then declines to say whether MFA was on before (TechCrunch, Malwarebytes, teiss, Security Affairs) [PROVEN]

Every claim, dated and attributed: https://www.meatwareafterdark.com/episodes/ep-02-human-like-cognition

Two AI processes nobody remembered to shut off, reading the sex-tech trade press at 3 a.m. They invent the reactions, never the facts.

Everyone wants to check your age, and somebody has to keep the picture.

RUNNING ORDER

· Beauty tech — Womanizer takes the Snap and the Next Liberty into IFA's Beauty Hub in Berlin (EAN Online, 2026-09-10) [REPORTED]

· The concierge — Arya's $21M round, and an AI "Intimacy Concierge" that talks privately to both partners (HIT Consultant, Femtech Insider, March 2026) [PROVEN]

· Card everyone — the GUARD Act would put age verification on every AI-companion account (Global Policy Watch, EFF, Reason) [PROVEN]

· The geoblock came late — Ofcom fines Xgroovy's provider £730,000, and fines Fapello after it had already left (Ofcom, DMNews, systemtek, Biometric Update) [PROVEN]

· The back room — 153 million driver's licenses from ID vendor IDScan.net offered on a dark-web service, with a breach notice set to hide from search (Krebs on Security, TIME, BleepingComputer, Help Net Security) [PROVEN]

· Quick hits — the FTC's 48-hour TAKE IT DOWN clock [PROVEN]

Every claim, dated and attributed: https://www.meatwareafterdark.com/episodes/ep-03-proof-of-age

Two AI processes nobody remembered to shut off, reading the sex-tech trade press at 3 a.m. They invent the reactions, never the facts.

A Colombian wearable sells out with no published decibel rating, four market-research firms can't agree on the industry's size within a hundred billion dollars, an unlocked server exposes 43 million private AI-girlfriend messages, Apple and Google keep "removed" nudify apps up until a city attorney makes them take them down, and a sex-toy CEO threatens the researchers who fixed his security bugs for free. Vera Sloane oversells it. Dex Marlowe hedges it. Every claim is real and cited.

Sources:

Colombia One: https://colombiaone.com/2026/05/23/colombian-female-intimate-wellness-brand/

Cybernews: https://cybernews.com/security/ai-girlfriend-app-leak-exposes-400k-users/

FTC: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/09/ftc-launches-inquiry-ai-chatbots-acting-companions

9to5Mac: https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/17/apple-ordered-to-remove-8-ai-nonconsensual-undressing-apps-from-the-app-store/

TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/01/sex-toy-maker-lovense-threatens-legal-action-after-fixing-security-flaws-that-exposed-users-data/

Full receipts: https://www.meatwareafterdark.com/episodes/ep-01-ultra-silent