Have I got news for you
The lovely Ananova will soon be reading the news on the Press Association's website - and working 24 hours a day without any breaks for eating or sleeping or visiting the bathroom. She is a vactor (virtual actor) or "synthespian" created by Digital Animations, and uses text-to-speech software from Lernout & Hauspie.
We've yet to see her in action - so far her website has only still images - but she's claimed to have a limited amount of AI (artificial intelligence) and some human-like characteristics. Mike Hambly, managing director at Digital Animations, refuses to provide any details of the hardware and software used to create her.
"Everything is proprietary," he says, "but it's based on muscle algorithms." Given the success of earlier virtual characters, Hambly has other ambitions. "A virtual presenter is just the first step," he says. "You've seen what's happened with Lara Croft."
High price of style
If you're a "style-conscious business executive" then Toshiba would like to sell you an Equium 2000 computer, launched this week. It's a desktop PC based on Toshiba's skills as a notebook manufacturer, and it does look good.
But style costs. With a 466MHz Intel Celeron (Pentium II) processor, 64MB of memory, 6GB hard drive, CD-rom and LCD screen it costs £1,775 plus VAT. Nor will Toshiba have the market to itself. Gateway has just announced the Profile II in the UK, an updated version of a similar PC launched in the US last year.
Ice surprise
An American company, CMi Worldwide, is preparing an Icebox for kitchen use. Nothing new about that, you might think, but in this case it's an Information Communication Entertainment Box. "It doesn't get any cooler," puns the company.
The Icebox combines a TV set with internet (web and email) access and a CD audio player, and comes with a separate waterproof wireless keyboard. It is expected to cost about $499 in US shops, though a version with a 12in LCD screen will be available for about $2,000. CMi also sells juice extractors and automatic breadmakers.
Through the looking glass
More immersing than a deep bath are Sony's new Glasstron Audio/Video Glasses. The glasses surround the viewer, offering magnification as though watching a 52in television screen from around six feet away.
Weighing only around 100g, the glasses connect easily to your VCR, DVD player, Camcorder or even your PlayStation. Inner earphones provide hifi stereo sound to put you right in the film or in the thick of gaming action. It runs on a lithium-ion battery and retails in the US for a cool $499.
Pictures in your palm
Anyone who carried around one of the early truck-sized VHS video cameras will appreciate Sharp's latest digital ViewCam. It's roughly palm-sized at 146mm by 96.5mm by 65mm, and without batteries weighs only 560g. It's not short of performance, either: it has a 770,000 pixel CCD for capturing images, and a 10x optical zoom with up to 100x magnification, if you can accept the inevitable loss in quality.
New readers start here
There can no longer be any argument about whether or not personal computing has entered the mainstream: Reader's Digest has published a highly-illustrated step-by-step book about it.
The new title, How To Do Just About Anything On A Computer (£29.99, follows the format familiar from earlier Reader's Digest publications.
But instead of explaining how to grow seeds, take a photo, bake a cake or rebuild your kitchen, it covers things like designing a letterhead and recording family history. This section, Practical Home Projects, makes up the bulk of the book, but there's an introduction that starts with the basics, and there's a troubleshooting section at the end.
The book comes with a CD-rom which provides access to the new Reader's Digest internet service, rdplus.net, launched on January 10; it also includes a 3D Landscape (garden design) program.
The use of a PC running Microsoft Windows is assumed throughout the book. However, there is a credit-card sized panel that says, helpfully: "Apple Macintosh computers, or Macs, work in a similar way to PCs."
More power per pound
NEC has announced a 433MHz PC that costs £433 plus VAT: not quite a quid per megahertz, but heading that way. The SE-533V has a somewhat limited specification: an Intel Celeron processor, only 32MB of memory, a 5GB hard drive and CD-rom, and comes with a 15in monitor. Unfortunately the company isn't selling 800MHz machines for £800, but eventually someone will.
