“An android could get away with it for a short time, 5-10 seconds. However, if we carefully select the situation, we could extend that, to perhaps 10 minutes,” – Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, Osaka University, Japan.

jolyon writes “The BBC is reporting that Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised – a “female” android called Repliee Q1. ‘She’ has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, can flutter her eyelids, move her hands like a human and even appears to breathe. She can only sit though at present, so we’re a long way from Blade Runner yet.”

* Slashdot | Japanese Develop ‘Female’ Android

darkonc writes “The CBC has notes and an interview with Dane Rasmus Nielsen who decided to reduce the confusion between ‘free as in speech’ and ‘free as in beer’ by making a beer free — in speech. The result is Vores Øl, an open source beer. The CBC site includes the recipe for the beer which is made with Guarana beans, and gives it a bit of a caffeine-like hit. The danish site downloads include the label for the beer (which is also Open Source).”

* Slashdot | Free Beer That’s Free as in Speech

Internet phenomena. Memes. Grist for the e-mail forwarding mill. Whatever you call them, Web fads are entertaining, unintended consequences of life on the World Wide Web. Once the masses could put anything online easily, they turned up weird fetishes, hilarious parody, jaw-dropping narcissism, and moments of brilliance. And over the past 10 years, some of these ideas broke through to the mainstream. Whether it was dancing hamsters, a kid enjoying his day as a Jedi Knight, or the sudden ability to publish your thoughts online with just a few simple clicks, the following 10 Web fads still make us laugh, make us wonder, or make us feel guilty enough to update our blogs.

* Top 10 Web fads – CNET.com

TIP: Try zooming all the way in!!

In honor of the first manned Moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969, we’ve added some NASA imagery to the Google Maps interface to help you pay your own visit to our celestial neighbor. Happy lunar surfing. More about Google Moon.

* Google Moon

* Google Earth

* Real Life Tron

Also see
* Human Pacman
* Mixed Reality Pacman

* Slashdot | Star Destroyer Built Before Your Eyes

The iGun!!

Soon you will wish to be shot with this handy gadget

* Wulffmorgenthaler – The daily comic strip. Great cartoon and comic books.

Regarding a dolphin-shaped water vehicle and exoskeletons for the old, he notes, ‘if you’re being pursued by a senior citizen then you can use the dolphin to escape.’ Wired’s been more about style rather than tech since the late 90s, but have they finally dropped science in favor of science fiction?”

* Slashdot | Ars’s Skeptical Take on Wired’s NextFest