man invents robot girl-friend, wants to make her wife

Some people have super-intelligence that they squander on the couch eating Doritos and watching "Weird Science" on TBS. Other people, like 33-year-old inventor Le Trung, take that potential and push it to reach glorious new heights by making their own robot girlfriend.

Aiko, Lee's robotic companion, is a math genius who handles Le's accounts and can speak 13,000 different sentences in English and Japanese. She has enviable measurements and performs simple household tasks and cleaning. Unlike the similar-looking love dolls, Aiko is not manufactured for sex, although according to Le she could be "tweaked" to become a sexual partner.

"Her software could be redesigned to simulate her having an orgasm and reacting to touch as if she is playing hard to get or being straight to the point," he said.

A child genius, Le devoted his considerable brainpower and all of his life savings on perfecting the fembot, who he says draws mixed reactions. "Women are generally impressed and try to talk to her. But the men always want to touch her, and if they do it in the wrong way they get a slap," he says.

After all the time we've spent preparing for the inevitability of robot hookers, all we have to say is that the future is now, friends. The future is now. via.

Technorati Tags: android,fembot,japanese robotics,le trung,robot wife,robot girlfriend,world' first robot wife,aiko,female robot,amazing robotics

carbon footprint of e-readers higher than print

Digital delivery of content for e-readers is a rapidly expanding market. Many assume that, because trees aren't being cut down and used to manufacture paper for books, e-readers (including the Kindle, Nook, iPad, and the like) are a greener way to read books and magazines. But a broader look at the use of these devices that includes the life-cycle of the e-readers themselves paints a much bleaker picture about how green they really are.

The article first looks at the carbon emissions for an average adult reader who reads 6.5 books per year. Paperback books have a footprint of 26 kilograms (over 57 pounds) of CO2, as compared to just under 70 grams (about 0.15 pounds) for the e-reader. But the tables are turned drastically when the carbon footprint of the reader is added in. The carbon footprint for this average reader is almost identical (130 kilograms or 285 pounds) when expanded over 5 years.

But how many people still use 5-year old electronic devices? Assuming a 2-year replacement cycle, the chart shows that the iPad carbon footprint outstrips that for the print reader, and even the more efficient iPad2 has more than double the emissions over a 5 year period. High-volume readers and those who hold on to their electronic devices for longer periods may make the e-reader a more suitable choice, but technological alternatives aren't always all their proponents would like consumers to believe. via EcoGeek.

Technorati Tags: carbon footprint,ipad,ipad 2,ipad 3,ereaders,e-paper footprint,carbon footprint research,e-paper,popular tablets,best-selling tablets

time for a little japanese

Manga, giant robots and robotics in general, not-so-common cultures, ideas, ideas and ideas; Tokyo overdrive, Shinkansen, ofuro, electronics, futuristic sub-cultures, cubic watermelons and insatiable hunger for design. If you love these, you'll probably love Japan. Here are a couple of sites that provide you content from Land of the Rising Sun:

• Tokyo Mango - Everything you ever wanted to know about the birth city of Godzilla, Gundam, All-You-Can-Eat Shabu Shabu, Panty vending machines.
• Kirai - A blog about Japan written by a Spanish geek in Tokyo.
• Japander - Celebrity News from Japan.
• Tokyo Flash - Unique Japanese watches.

While you’re at it, check out cubic watermelons that Japanese farmers have been growing for the past twelve years.

Technorati Tags: all things japan,exhilarating tokyo,tokyo lights,tokyo highlights,living in japan,gaijin in japan,expat in japan,expat in tokyo,tokyo electronics,japanese watches

desiderata by max ehrmann

Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its shams, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

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pleasure for the eyes

Also called sight gags. This site has a huge collection of funny photos, audio, photo and the like. For instance, here’s an extremely eager Irish girl trying to demolish her school. Listen.

These are some good audio gags, visual gags, jokes and many more to keep you merrily occupied for a lonely afternoon.

Technorati Tags: humour,excellent humour,lazy afternoon,lonely afternoon,unusual funny pictures,unusual funny audio,interesting phone conversations,funny phone conversations,game videos,hilarious videos

predictions for the year 2000

The 1900 December issue of The Ladies Home Journal published an article by John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. listing some predictions for the year 2000 – exactly a hundred years into the future. A few interesting ones are shortlisted below:

• Prediction #4: There Will Be No Street Cars in Our Large Cities. All hurry traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels, well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with “moving-sidewalk” stairways leading to the top. These underground or overhead streets will teem with capacious automobile passenger coaches and freight with cushioned wheels. Subways or trestles will be reserved for express trains.  Cities, therefore, will be free from all noises.
• Prediction #5: Trains will run two miles a minute, normally; express trains one hundred and fifty miles an hour. To go from New York to San Francisco will take a day and a night by fast express.  There will be cigar-shaped electric locomotives hauling long trains of cars. Cars will, like houses, be artificially cooled. Along the railroads there will be no smoke, no cinders, because coal will neither be carried nor burned. There will be no stops for water. Passengers will travel through hot or dusty country regions with windows down.
• Prediction #7: There will be air-ships, but they will not successfully compete with surface cars and water vessels for passenger or freight traffic. They will be maintained as deadly war-vessels by all military nations. Some will transport men and goods. Others will be used by scientists making observations at great heights above the earth.
• Prediction #9: Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later. Even to-day photographs are being telegraphed over short distances.  Photographs will reproduce all of Nature’s colors.
• Prediction #18: Telephones Around the World. Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn. By an automatic signal they will connect with any circuit in their locality without the intervention of a “hello girl”.

For a full list of predictions, go to this page. It’s amazing how some predictions become exactly true.

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automatically generate your expenditure bills

Ok. This one is not for real. But this one is definitely for a little fun to do with that extra money you already spent, for which you want receipts to stay out of trouble. So load the page here. Then put the amount you want to spend. It’ll do the rest. As for me I spent some $234 in the restaurant, that I shouldn’t have spent; and later I generated some bills, the snippets of which are shown here.

This tool was in fact, built by Maloney & Porcelli restaurant, probably as a promotion for their online reservation. It says in their homepage,

Now you can eat at Maloney & Porcelli as often as you like and never worry about your expense report raising any eyebrows. Simply type in your bill total below and the expense report generator will do the rest.

So next time you have some spare money that you’ve already spent, just remember the figure you spent and head to this amazing expenditure bills generator.

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