Some war injuries are obvious at first glance, like missing limbs or facial burn scars. Others remain invisible to the casual eye -- post-traumatic stress disorder, brain injuries, broken hearts.

Yes, broken hearts. The recent Army Suicide Report revealed that in 2007, 50 percent of suicides among active duty personnel occurred just after their partners broke up with them, and cites "failed intimate relationships" as the most common reason for suicide attempts even after soldiers return home.

The military does not have a fabulous track record for making sex and relationships a priority, other than promoting heterosexual marriage and families as the foundation of stability and an ideal worth defending. Yet how can you simultaneously encourage marriage while ignoring the emotional toll of deployment and combat on a relationship?

But finally, even the military is beginning to acknowledge the importance of sexuality as a crucial component of overall health. And as mental health professionals and policymakers gathered in Washington, D.C., last month for the Wounded Troops and Partners: Supporting Intimate Relationships conference, it became clear that technology is the key.

"Technology is allowing us to provide more services and to make services available to more people," says psychologist Barbara V. Romberg, Ph.D., founder of Give an Hour, which matches soldiers and their partners with volunteer mental health professionals. "We can do so many wonderful things we couldn't have done a decade ago. Think of the veterans who came back from Vietnam; they were isolated and alone. Maybe they were lucky to find someone who could help them, but it was so much harder."

One application in the works is eHART, an extensive online assessment tool developed by Sexual Health Network founder Dr. Mitchell Tepper and Chief Operations Officer Kelly J. Ace, Ph.D., J.D. The tool asks extensive and detailed questions about sexual functions, romantic relationships and general health history, then returns information tailored to you and a summary you can take to a health care provider -- if you want. None of the information is shared with anyone else unless you want to share it.

"People are more comfortable revealing sensitive information about sexuality to a computer than to a person," Tepper says. Especially when military approaches to sexual health are often delivered by people without any training in addressing sexual issues.

Tepper cites an example of a servicewoman hospitalized with a spinal injury who had lost her interest in sex. She was asked as part of a routine screening after deployment whether she had experienced sexual trauma during her tour. She said no, even though she had been raped, because she was asked in an impersonal manner in front of other men and women who could overhear her answer. She also did not mention the rape to her doctor -- nor did she receive any counseling or education about sex.

She eventually did tell a psychiatrist about the experience, who then helped her talk to her husband. But her reluctance to report the rape or to ask for sexual information after her injury is common.

Many service members worry that admitting to mental or sexual health issues will negatively affect their military careers. It's especially difficult for young people to publicly address sex, as you don't have a lot of practice in your early 20s talking about relationship and sexual issues with partners, much less with doctors.

Advances in prosthetics and other hardware (like Darpa's mind-controlled robotic arm or the iBot wheelchair) can provide more mobility and independence for those who acquire a disability during their service (assuming the government will fund this level of care), but no matter how sophisticated the devices, they cannot address the psychological issues that accompany the permanent injuries.

"These young men and women have formed their identities around being brave, strong, courageous, hard-bodied, brilliant," Romberg says. "Then, if they receive an injury or a brain injury or PTSD, how do you help them cope with this loss of identity? It's added on top of the normal discomfort of dating, of asking, 'Do you like me? Do I have something of value to offer? Am I attractive enough?' and wondering whether someone will love them."

Romberg sees a number of ways in which technology is helping troops and their partners cope as they return home. She is talking with one organization that might partner with Give an Hour to create online communities where people affected by the wars can share their experiences and ask questions of others who have gone through similar events.

She also sees great potential in virtual worlds, which are already being used to treat PTSD in veterans, not just of Iraq and Afghanistan, but of Vietnam as well.

The Army has begun offering telepsychiatry, which offers soldiers therapy over a private web videoconference. In addition to obvious privacy factors, it also enables them to receive therapy over long distances -- even in the field.

"One thing we're all calling for is more training up front, before deployment, to help people deal with this and build up emotional resilience," Tepper says. "I'd like to see sexual health services become more comprehensive, not just offered when someone has an STD or a pregnancy. It should include how people feel about themselves -- the touchy-feely aspects. That's quite important when people start thinking they're no longer capable to be in their role as (partner)."

I'm living proof that virtual spaces can be highly effective in treating sexual trauma, as it was cybersex that healed me from the effects of sexual abuse. They're also an excellent "practice ground" for transitioning back into life as a single civilian and for meeting potential partners who understand what you've gone through.

I asked Tepper whether soldiers were making the best use of technology to stay intimate while they are apart, and he laughed. "People do know they can use the internet to stay in touch, and I don't think we need to teach them how to talk on the phone in a sexual way," he says. "Not that cybersex isn't a good way to stay connected, but we want something beyond that."

See you in a fortnight,

Regina Lynn

Regina Lynn offers a number of strategies for using tech to enhance your sexual relationships in her latest book, Sexier Sex.

1933: The world's first drive-in movie theater opens in Camden, New Jersey.

The concept was developed by Richard Hollingshead Jr., who experimented with various projection and sound techniques in the driveway of his house. Using a 1928 Kodak projector mounted on the hood of his car and aimed at a screen pinned to some trees, Hollingshead worked out the spacing logistics to make sure that all cars had an unobstructed view of the screen.

He received a patent for his idea in May 1933 and opened his first drive-in theater only three weeks later. They quickly fanned out across the country.

Their popularity soared after World War II, when Americans started having kids in droves. (Can you say "Boom"?) The drive-in offered cheap family entertainment, a place where parents could take the kids without having to shell out for a baby sitter, or worry about them bothering other patrons.

In fact, that was Hollingshead's original hook: "The whole family is welcome, regardless of how noisy the children are."

Drive-in theaters tended toward B movies -- Muscle Beach Party, Tarzan, Creature From the Black Lagoon and stuff like that -- and always included a snack stand and a play area where the kids could go when they got bored. Which is what kids do.

Another feature of the early drive-in theater was the tinny sound, delivered to the car through a single, monaural speaker. As the technology improved over time -- the car's FM radio became the receiver in some cases -- so did the sound.

The drive-in's heyday lasted from the late 1950s until the mid-'60s, when nearly 5,000 theaters were operating in the United States. No cultural survey of the period would be complete without including the iconic drive-in movie theater.

Since drive-ins offered a certain amount of privacy, making out in the back seat of the car was a rite of passage for Teenus americanus, circa 1963. You could get it on in the front seat, too, if you had a column shift, or even a bench seat with four on the floor. But bucket seats? Forget it.

The rising cost of real estate was one of the factors that led to the decline of the drive-in. Especially for those theaters located in urban areas or heavily populated suburbs, the cost of doing business was becoming prohibitive. The popularity of walk-in theaters and video rentals didn't help, either.

Nevertheless, drive-ins endure. Although fewer than 500 remain today, the industry appears to have stabilized. Those that survive often rely on additional sources of income to pay the rent, hence the popularity of drive-in-theater parking lots as flea markets, swap meets, motorcycle schools and even outdoor churches.

Source: Drive-ins.com, DriveinMovie.com, Wikipedia

TOKYO -- Steve Jobs' new iPhone, expected to be unveiled Monday, is headed to Japan by the end of the year. But the device's famed ease of use may actually be a turnoff in Japan, where consumers want features, not simplicity.



Indeed, Japanese handsets have become prime examples of feature creep gone mad. In many cases, phones in Japan are far too complex for users to master.

"There are tons of buttons, and different combinations or lengths of time yield different results,'" says Koh Aoki, an engineer who lives in Tokyo.

Experimenting with different key combinations in search of new features is "good for killing time during a long commute," Aoki says, "but it's definitely not elegant."

Japan has long been famous for its advanced cellphones with sci-fi features like location tracking, mobile credit card payment and live TV. These handsets have been the envy of consumers in the United States, where cell technology has trailed an estimated five years or more. But while many phones would do Captain Kirk proud, most of the features are hard to use or not used at all.

"Some people care about quality, but first and foremost it's about the features," says Nobi Hayashi, a journalist and author of Steve Jobs: The Greatest Creative Director. He estimates that the average person only uses 5 to 10 percent of the functions available on their handsets.

Japan is a culture of spec sheets. When consumers go to electronics stores to buy a cellphone, they frequently line up the specifications side by side to compare them before deciding which one to buy.

Hayashi owns a Panasonic P905i, a fancy cellphone that doubles as a miniature but crisp 3-inch TV. In addition to 3G and GPS, the device has a 5.1-megapixel camera and motion sensors that enable Wii-style games to be played sitting on the train.

"When I show this to visitors from the U.S, they're amazed," Hayashi says. "They think there's no way anybody would want an iPhone in Japan. But that's only because I'm setting it up for them so that they can see the cool features."

In actuality, Hayashi says, the P905i is fatally flawed. The motion sensors are painfully slow, and the novelty of using them is quickly replaced with frustration. And while being able to watch TV anywhere is a spectacular idea, there's no signal in the subways, and even above ground, the sound cuts out every few seconds.

"There's nothing more annoying than choppy TV noises," Hayashi says.

Aoki, who carries two phones, a Sony W44S and an iPhone for accessing the web, has only a vague idea of all the things the Sony cellphone is capable of doing. "Every once in a while, you find an incredible function via the complicated menu," he says.

The manufacturers, who realize the absurdity of piling on features that don't work well, are caught in a vicious cycle of materialistic consumers who always want the newest high-tech handsets, and carriers that have complete control over what products and services are provided to their customers.

"The most important thing for us is to provide our end users with a unique user experience through our products," says Toshi Kawamura, a spokesman for Sony Ericsson Japan.

They're also at the mercy of the all-powerful carriers, like NTT DoCoMo -- the company that created the localized 3G network that makes Japanese handsets virtually obsolete in the rest of the world -- who get to decide what applications and functions are compatible with their networks.

"The flashy little functions are cool, but they're carrier-specific," Hayashi says. "Once you take this out of Japan, it's just a piece of metal." Japanese companies only make 5 percent of global mobile phone sales, and all of those sales are domestic.

Neat-looking gadgets are also a core aspect of one's identity. Daiji Hirata, chief financial officer of News2u Corporation and creator of Japan's first wireless LAN, admits to changing handsets more often than is probably necessary.

"Cellphones are always part of any conversation," he says. "People are always using them and holding them, even in the middle of a meal, so they might not think you're hip if you're carrying an old one."

However, it's unclear whether Japanese consumers will ditch their complicated cellphones for Apple's easy-to-use iPhone, which will be sold in Japan by SoftBank by the end of the year.

A survey conducted by Japan Railways showed that just more than half of those polled were interested in buying the iPhone, but that less than one-fifth really knew what the iPhone was.

"It doesn't have 3G, the camera is only 2 megapixels, and it lacks fun little features like mobile wallet functions and an LED flashlight," Hayashi says. "It may sell modestly as a smart phone or as an upgraded iPod, but it's not quite cutting it as a competitor in our mobile-based culture."

To celebrate the Drive-In's 75th birthday, we asked readers to submit their favorite drive-in photos from around the country. The now-dwindling venues have come to represent an American era of coveted cars and mesmerizing movies. Click through to see our favorite reader-submitted drive-in photos, from California to New Jersey.

Left:

Starlite Drive-In, El Monte, California
Submitted by MJ Seitz Vega

Photographer's comment:

"Starlite Drive-In is just outside of Los Angeles. Taken March 2008. Nikon FM-10 with Kodak film. The Starlite has been closed for some time. The space now hosts a swap meet several days a week."

Winchester Drive-In
Submitted by Anthony Ross

Photographer's comment:

"This drive-in is located in Oklahoma City. Since I am not from there, I'm not sure if it is still standing."

Apache Drive-In Theater
Submitted by R. Svirskas

Photographer's comment:

"The Apache Drive-In Theater in Globe, Arizona. It's the last single-screen in the state."

Ford-Wyoming Drive-In, Detroit
Submitted by Jim Rees

Photographer's comment:

"The main theater is five screens; this annex is four. By some measures, this is the largest drive-in theater in the United States. To get this shot, I waited until the end of the movie (note the credits) when they turn on the poacher lights."

Delsea Drive-In, Vineland, New Jersey
Submitted by Maggie Stewart

Photographer's comment:

"Camden was Jersey's first drive-in and this is the state's last. The Delsea Drive-In is one screen at the edge of Pine Barrens, out mostly in the middle of nowhere. Cars park on a sandy unpaved lot and tune in to movie soundtracks via their radios. Every night is at least a double feature."

Downhill Racer
Submitted by Calum Davidson

Photographer's comment:

"Each year, the little Scottish Highland town of Cromarty hosts the world's smallest film festival, and the parking lot of the local shop is transformed into a drive-in theatre, for four cars ... This shot shows the haunting documentary Downhill Racer about the famous Highland Fairground -- aka shows -- family the Herchers. Shown projected onto the wall of Ferro Cottage as part of the Cromarty Film Festival."

Haar's Drive-In (and Flea Market)
Submitted by Phinehas

Photographer's comment:

"Located in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, Haar's has nearly gone out of business more than once in the past couple of years thanks to its being built on a coveted piece of land. But for the time being, one can still drive by and smell the popcorn from the concessions or go whole-hog and grab a double feature."

Movie Manor Inn, Monte Vista, Colorado
Submitted by Aaron

Photographer's comment:

"The Kelloff's Best Western Movie Manor is an American treasure in Monte Vista, Colorado. Snug up against the Sangre de Cristos Mountains, the Movie Manor is a motel, restaurant and drive-in. There are big picture-windows in the motel rooms, which are piped for sound, so you can enjoy the feature from your room!"

Valley Drive-In, McAllen, Texas
Submitted by Kevin Trotman

Photographer's comment:

"Taken in 1997 in McAllen, Texas. I hear it was torn down and a truck dealership stands there now."

Waiting for the Sun to Go Down
Submitted by Danh Hoang

Photographer's comment:

"This drive-in is located in Amarillo, Texas, along the Dumas Highway (U.S. Highway 287). Before the double feature begins, people gather around the park as a social event. Kids are playing on the playground that is set up in front of the screen. The smell of popcorn in the air and the sound of laughter is a timeless event in West Texas."