Better late than never dept: "Virtual girlfriend" programs were, briefly, a talking point on home computers, and Artificial Life Inc of Hong Kong is now offering one you can take out -- via your 3G mobile phone.
"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," reports The New York Times.
"She can converse on 35,000 topics, from philosophy to movies to sculpture. Artificial Life tweaked and reused close to 70,000 questions and answers on banking alone for Vivienne -- those questions were developed for an unrelated contract for a Swiss private bank."
However, it is going to be tedious communicating with Vivienne. She has a synthesised voice, but you have to type everything....
Incidentally, this story appeared on the BBC News site on August 23, 2004. The V-Girl programme also won a prize in the Ericsson Mobile Application Awards last year -- in the Best Mobile Gaming category.
