[extropy-chat] NYT: Virtual Girlfriend

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

NYT: Men, are you tired of the time, trouble and expense of having a
girlfriend? Irritated by the difficulty of finding a new one?
Eberhard Schöneburg, the chief executive of the software maker
Artificial Life Inc. of Hong Kong, may have found the answer: a
virtual girlfriend named Vivienne who goes wherever you go.
Vivienne likes to be taken to movies and bars. She loves to be given
virtual flowers and chocolates, and she can translate six languages if
you travel overseas. She never undresses, although she has some skimpy
outfits for the gym, and is a tease who draws the line at anything
beyond blowing kisses.
Vivienne, the product of computerized voice synthesis, streaming video
and text messages, is meant not only to bring business to Artificial
Life (she will be available for a monthly fee of $6, not including the
airtime costs paid to cellphone operators or the price of virtual
chocolates and flowers). But she is also meant to be a lure for the
new, higher-tech, third generation, or 3G, cellphones.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/24/technology/24girlfriend.html