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July 19, 2006
Muu Socia Communication Robot
ムーソシア（Muusocia) is a communication robot developed by Systec Akazawa and ATR and was shown last week at a medical trade show in Tokyo. Designed to assist doctor/patient communication, it reacts to voice, has speech synthesis and facial recognition.
It's normal appearance is as a candy-drop shaped robot with one very human looking eye. The drop shape, however, sits over a fairly boring cylinder. A bit of redesign, and it could look like C3-PO.
More information:
Posted by sjc at 3:21 PM
July 5, 2006
Identity Theft Face On
By the time of Shiva Brent Sharma's third arrest for identity theft, at the age of 20, he had taken in well over $150,000 in cash and merchandise in his brief career. After a certain point, investigators stopped counting. He is currently serving a two- to four-year term at the Mohawk Correctional Facility in Rome, N.Y. Photo by Tom Zeller, New York Times, July 3, 2006.
Tom Zeller, of the New York Times, writing a series of articles on identity theft, has an in-depth interview with Shiva Brent Sharma who began a career of identity crime while a student at Brooklyn Polytechnic. He describes Sharmas as "soft-spoken, but he does not shrink from the spotlight. He gained fleeting attention after his first arrest, as the first person charged under a New York State identity-theft statute — and later, at his high school graduation at the Rikers Island jail, where he was the class valedictorian."
But you can make your own (video and computer mediated) impression ... the article includes two, possibly three if the link gets fixed, clips edited from the interview. Definitely worth checking out while it is still available. (Unfortunately, it's not a podcast, is not available from itunes, etc ... )
Tom Zeller, Jr. Identity Thief Finds Easy Money Hard to Resist, New York Times. Published: July 4, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/us/04identity.html
Tom Zeller, Video: An Interview With an Identity Thief, New York times, Published: July 4, 2006. Three parts. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Posted by sjc at 11:27 AM