Meet Zoe

Remember the talking computer Holly/Hilly in the BBC TV comedy sci-fi series Red Dwarf, played in its female incarnation by Hattie Hayridge (left)? In an imperfect example of life imitating art, the latest computerised talking head is a virtual Zoe Lister. Cambridge University's Engineering Department and the Toshiba Research Laboratory collaborated on this project, which allows you to chat with Zoe and explore her emotions. The BBC's Technology Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones put the virtual Zoe through her paces (CLICK). Her speech is still a bit wooden, but she's prettier than Pinocchio. Will my next computer have this glamorous baldie popping up to warn me "Error: stack overflow in Line 0"? (I had one of those yesterday. I link this blog only to safe websites, but I find some dodgy ones while browsing the Web.)