News reports have dubbed Aiko the android the perfect wife, who will never nag. But Mr Le believes the technology could have numerous benefits and says his hobby is no stranger than other people's."Some people spend too much time in bars... I just spend my time building robots," said the robotics enthusiast from Toronto, Canada. "I do still go out."

Aiko, a female android made of silicon and electronics, is able to recognise faces and objects, interact with people using knowledge of more than 13,000 phrases in English and Japanese and tell people whether to take an umbrella if it's raining.If Mr Le's project goes to plan, Aiko will also gather some more unusual skills – such as cleaning people's ears.

"If I lie my head down on Aiko lap, have her clean my ears with a Q-tip," Mr Le lists as one of his goals on the project's website.

At the moment, Aiko can also read the newspaper, learn the layout of buildings and offer directions to people, feed patients their food or medication and respond angrily if someone tries to hurt her. But the most controversial feature of Aiko, weighing 32kg and measuring 152cm tall with a bust size of 82cm, has proven to be her anatomically correct body.

Mr Le said he didn't design Aiko for sexual purposes, but it was one possible use of the technology. "In theory, yes it's capable of that and whether people want to use it like that, it's up to them," he said."I designed Aiko to be as human as possible, that's why I designed it like that."

Mr Le said while most people thought lifelike robots were strange at the moment, in the future every household would have one."Right now people see robots as if they're just like in the movies," he said. "So when they see films like I Robot it makes them scared robots might take over the world or cause a lot of job loss.

"My android wasn't designed like that. It was designed to interact with people.

"In the future everybody will have one in their house – but now people aren't used to it yet."

Aiko has attitude

Mr Le has documented each major step of Aiko's development in YouTube videos and images posted to his website. In one video, Mr Le demonstrates Aiko's ability to feed patients. The inventor asks the robot to feed him and it responds by grasping a biscuit and aiming for his mouth.

Mr Le then starts bobbing his head from left to right while Aiko's hand follows him."Stop moving around," the robot says sternly.Mr Le continues to weave and duck, before Aiko gives up in frustration."Screw this, you can feed yourself," it says. In another video, taken during Aiko's first public appearance at the Ontario Science Centre last November, Mr Le squeezes the robot's breast.

"I do not like it when you touch my breasts," Aiko says, while swatting the inventor away with her right arm.

Mr Le wrote Aiko's software – dubbed Biometric Robot Artificial Intelligence Neural System, or BRAINS – using C# and Basic and hopes to license the system to other robot developers in the future. The current version of Aiko's body has moving parts at the mouth, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists and hands. The robot's hands have five movable fingers and can also be controlled by a human wearing sensor pads on the forearm to detect muscle movement. Mr Le, who has spent more than $CA20,000 ($24,000) on the project so far, hopes to upgrade Aiko to include engines in the body, hips, knee and ankles and to teach it to walk.

Cell Phone Do’s and Don’ts

Author: jamiehanson

More than a decade has gone by since the use of the cell phone became universal, and yet many people still seem to be oblivious to the fact that there are rules of etiquette surrounding its use. The modern need to be in touch with all people 24/7 through a cellular device has grown enormously; meanwhile we ignore the human being right in front of us.

Times change, but some cell phone rules don’t. Here is a short, common sense guide to cell phone etiquette. Among the most annoying habits of rude cell phone users are talking too loudly and holding inappropriate conversations in public. For some strange reason, people feel the need to raise their voices while on their cell phones although the phone’s microphone is entirely adequate to amplify and carry their voices. Personal cell phone conversations should be kept personal, so offer to call the person back and find a more private place where your discussion won’t intrude upon others. Places to avoid with cell phone use are libraries, elevators, houses of worship, bank lines and commuter trains and buses.

Abruptly interrupting face to face conversations or other interpersonal activities to answer your cell phone is another big no-no. How would you feel to stand around waiting while your date, friend or family member initiated a long cell phone chat with someone else on your time? Always turn your cell phone off or put it on silent vibrate when going to the movies or to live performances such as plays, concerts, comedy clubs, etc. A ringing cell phone or conversation during a performance is disrespectful not only to the audience around you, but to the performers, particularly at live events. Special mention should go to loud and annoying ring tones for incoming calls.

A window of three subsequent rings is sufficient before the call goes to voicemail, and not everyone may be amused by your cell phone’s Darth Vader ring tone, especially if it goes on too long. Texting or dialing while driving is not only rude, it’s dangerous. If that cell phone communication is all important, make sure you’re on hands free or have pulled over while behind the wheel. According to a Harvard University study, 200 deaths and over half a million injuries are caused each year by improper, inconsiderate cell phone use. But there are other social blunders associated with cell phone etiquette that are on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Almost everyone screens a call they should otherwise answer. Sometimes screening is necessary, but you must answer a call now and then, or you might become very unpopular. While replying to a missed call with a text is acceptable, it’s a clear sign that you can’t – or don’t want to talk. Leave voicemail messages that are short and to the point, and, as importantly, make sure your own cell phone’s personal greeting is equally considerate of your caller’s time.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/technology-articles/cell-phone-dos-and-donts-682793.html

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By A. O. SCOTT

The first 40 minutes or so of “Wall-E” — in which barely any dialogue is spoken, and almost no human figures appear on screen — is a cinematic poem of such wit and beauty that its darker implications may take a while to sink in. The scene is an intricately rendered city, bristling with skyscrapers but bereft of any inhabitants apart from a battered, industrious robot and his loyal cockroach sidekick. Hazy, dust-filtered sunlight illuminates a landscape of eerie, post-apocalyptic silence. This is a world without people, you might say without animation, though it teems with evidence of past life.

We’ve grown accustomed to expecting surprises from Pixar, but “Wall-E” surely breaks new ground. It gives us a G-rated, computer-generated cartoon vision of our own potential extinction. It’s not the only film lately to engage this somber theme. As the earth heats up, the vanishing of humanity has become something of a hot topic, a preoccupation shared by directors like Steven Spielberg (“A.I.”), Francis Lawrence (“I Am Legend”), M. Night Shyamalan (“The Happening”) and Werner Herzog. In his recent documentary “Encounters at the End of the World” Mr. Herzog muses that “the human presence on this planet is not really sustainable,” a sentiment that is voiced, almost verbatim, in the second half of “Wall-E.” When the whimsical techies at Pixar and a moody German auteur are sending out the same message, it may be time to pay attention.

Not that “Wall-E” is all gloom and doom. It is, undoubtedly, an earnest (though far from simplistic) ecological parable, but it is also a disarmingly sweet and simple love story, Chaplinesque in its emotional purity. On another level entirely it’s a bit of a sci-fi geek-fest, alluding to everything from “2001” and the “Alien” pictures (via a Sigourney Weaver voice cameo) to “Wallace and Gromit: A Grand Day Out.” But the movie it refers to most insistently and overtly is, of all things, “Hello, Dolly!,” a worn videotape that serves as the title character’s instruction manual in matters of choreography and romance.

That old, half-forgotten musical, with its Jerry Herman lyrics crooned by, among others, Louis Armstrong, is also among Wall-E’s mementos of, well, us. He is a dented little workhorse who, having outlasted his planned obsolescence, spends his days in the Sisyphean, mechanical labor of gathering and compacting garbage. His name is an acronym for Waste Allocation Load Lifter- Earth Class. But not everything he finds is trash to Wall-E. In the rusty metal hulk where he and the cockroach take shelter from dust storms, he keeps a carefully sorted collection of treasures, including Zippo lighters, nuts and bolts, and a Rubik’s Cube.



Wall-E’s tender regard for the material artifacts of a lost civilization is understandable. After all, he too is a product of human ingenuity. And the genius of “Wall-E,” which was directed by the Pixar mainstay Andrew Stanton, who wrote the screenplay with Jim Reardon, lies in its notion that creativity and self-destruction are sides of the same coin. The human species was driven off its home planet — Wall-E eventually learns that we did not die out — by an economy consecrated to the manufacture and consumption of ever more stuff. But some of that stuff turned out to be useful, interesting, and precious. And some of it may even possess something like a soul.

Observing Wall-E’s surroundings, the audience gleans that, in some bygone time, a conglomerate called BnL (for “Buy N Large”) filled the earth with megastores and tons of garbage. Eventually the corporation loaded its valued customers onto a space station (captained by Jeff Garlin), where they have evolved into fat, lazy leisure addicts serviced by a new generation of specialized machines. One of these, a research probe named Eve (all of the robot names are acronyms as well as indicators of theoretical gender) drops to Earth and wins Wall-E’s heart.

Their courtship follows some familiar patterns. If “Wall-E” were a romantic comedy, it would be about a humble garbageman who falls for a supermodel who also happens to be a top scientist with a knack for marksmanship. (I’m pretty sure I reviewed that a while back, but the title escapes me.) Wall-E is a boxy machine of the old school, with creaks and clanks and visible rivets, his surface pocked with dents and patches of rust. He is steadfast, but not always clever or cool. Eve, shaped like an elongated egg, is as cool as the next iPhone and whisper quiet, unless she’s excited, in which case she has a tendency to blow things up. She and Wall-E communicate in chirps and beeps that occasionally coalesce into words. Somehow their expressions — of desire, irritation, indifference, devotion and anxiety, all arranged in delicate counterpoint — achieve an otherworldly eloquence.

That they are endowed with such rich humanity is as much a Pixar trademark as the painstakingly modeled surfaces or the classical virtual camerawork and editing. The technical resourcefulness that allows “Wall-E” to leap effortlessly from the derelict Earth to the pristine atmosphere of the space station is matched by the rigorous integrity the filmmakers bring to the characters and the themes.

Rather than turn a tale of environmental cataclysm into a scolding, self-satisfied lecture, Mr. Stanton shows his awareness of the contradictions inherent in using the medium of popular cinema to advance a critique of corporate consumer culture. The residents of the space station, accustomed to being tended by industrious robots, have grown to resemble giant babies, with soft faces, rounded torsos and stubby, weak limbs. Consumer capitalism, anticipating every possible need and swaddling its subjects in convenience, is an infantilizing force. But as they cruise around on reclining chairs, eyes fixed on video screens, taking in calories from straws sticking out of giant cups, these overgrown space babies also look like moviegoers at a multiplex.

They’re us, in other words. And like us, they’re not all bad. The paradox at the heart of “Wall-E” is that the drive to invent new things and improve the old ones — to buy and sell and make and collect — creates the potential for disaster and also the possible path away from it. Or, put another way, some of the same impulses that fill the world of “Wall-E” — our world — with junk can also fill it with art.

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Are you fond of movies about James Bond's adventures? Well probably you are if you appear to be surfing the web for latest gadgets. I am far from being the biggest fan of his, but as long as he gets the best of the best from hi-tech world, I better seat back and enjoy the gadgets' of future showdown. Eventually, Bond's toys appear to be concepts not forever, so here is the latest camera, media player and a stylish watch all in one device on your wrist. Well, may be not as stylish as it should be, but huge watches are in fashion out there as far as I know, so maybe you like the way it looks. If you do, then Thanko's products might attract your attention with their latest MP4 Watch.

As you might have already understood, MP4 Watch is the only watch in Thanco's hi-tech watch's family. But to be honest, they are not very popular as MP4 is likely to be. First of all, previous models of Analog Camera Watches are even bigger and less stylish than this one on the picture. Speaking of which, it also has a built-in camera and memory card. In addition, I also has 1.8 inch color display (which should be OLED one day or another). Its resolution is 160 x 128 MPix and the MP4 Watch is capable to show JPG and TXT documents on it. Proving the name, it can playback MP3, AVI and WMA formats. Surely gadget is equipped with a loudspeaker and mini-USB hub for headphones or for synchronization with computer. Camera is probably the best part of the MP4 Watch. Though screen is limited with 160 x 128 resolution, camera shoots 640 x 480 pictures and records video. Well done for a watch for around 160 USD.

Source: http://www.gadgets-reviews.com/

by Christen da Costa

Asus’ design team found some middle ground between their normal line of laptops and their recently released Asus S101. The up coming Eee PC 1002HA laptop is finished in brushed aluminum and sports a 1.6Ghz Intel Atom processor, 10-inch 1024×600 LCD, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive (plus 10GB of online storage) and a 2-cell battery that has a purported 5 hour life.