Roborior

Are you worried about leaving the house empty when away on vacation or work travel? Apparently Tmsuk Co. Lt. , Tokyo thinks we should be, because they have the latest technology designed to relieve our worry. It's the Roborior, a a watremelon-sized eyeball on wheels that glows purple, blue and orange and will be your house guard while you are away at play or work. Roborior is equipped with a digital camera, infrared sensors and a videophone (of course..it's a Japanese invention) and is available now in Japanese stores.
The intent of the company is to expand sales world wide by marketing Roborior as a fashionable guard dog of sorts that can sense break-ins using the infrared sensors to notify the owner or police if break-ins occur. The owner's cell phone can download video of the break in as well, making Roborior more than just a toy.
Actually, Roborior is a scaled down version of the company's more expensive security Robot "Banryu", which is about the size of a dog and sells for $18,000, pricey compared to Roborior's $2,600 cost. But I wonder how easy it would be to disable Roborior or Banryu? Surely, a burglar would be able to jam Roborior or simply smash him to bits.
So Roborior might be something for the techno crazy Japanese consumer and not for the rest of the world. Or perhaps Roborior might be someone's idea of furniture or a pet. The company says it will initially sell about 2000 Roboriors. What do you think of the idea? It seems to me Roborior is more likely to become a trendy toy than a practical security guard.
Ever get those solicitations for credit cards? I mean when the credit card company wants you to sign you up as a customer. They usually are quite formal in addressing potential customers. "Dear Sir" or Dear Madam" are the usual way to address the person who they solicit. But Sami Habbas got a form letter from Chase Visa the other day that has him a bit upset. You see, it addressed the 54 year old naturalized U.S. citizen of Palestinian heritage as "Palestinian Bomber".
Haha As you might guess, Sami will not sign up for a Chase card any time soon. Chase officials have apologized profusely for the insult, saying a third party that sold Chase names of potential customers is the one who labeled him that way, and that Chase never knew about it beforehand. Sami says he is shocked and that it's "upsetting, derogatory, and slanderous".
But he was even more shocked when, on several occasions, he called the Chase toll free number and spoke to operators there to complain. Each time he called the operators always said, "Yes, Mr. Palestinian Bomber, how can we help you?" A Muslim group, CAIR, is now demanding that Chase, apologize to the Palestinian Bomber (whoops! I did it too) denounce the greetings as "racist", launch a full investigation of how it all happened, and conduct "sensitivity training" and issue a formal apology to the terrorist organization Habbas.
But wait! Sami got off easy. Last week Comcast Inc. fired two of it's customer service representatives after they changed a woman's name on a customer bill to "Bitch Dog" after she repeatedly complained about Comcast service...