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[Image: Ah, the holidays...when good people all over the world log on to Skype and share a virtual meal in Amsterdam.]

Celebrate Together When You’re Worlds Apart: Virtual Holiday Dinner

December 30th, 2010 by Aaron Saenz

This holiday season 156 people living on six different continents got to eat dinner with their closest friends and loved ones even though they were thousands of miles apart. Was it Christmas magic, a Hanukkah miracle, or a Kwanza surprise? Nope, just another example of modern technology. Using five robotic telepresence ‘dolls’, Skype, and one oversized table, Dutch advertising firm Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam brought friends together for Virtual Holiday Dinner 2010. Along with mics and speakers, each tele-robot doll had a video monitor to display a user’s face, and a webcam to record the other robots around the table. Head tracking software let one glance around the table by turning one’s gaze. In fifteen-minute blocks, guests were able to log in to one of the dolls via Skype and interact with others doing the same, along with some people who attended locally. The result was a fun chance to catch up with distant loved ones and tip a glass together in the spirit of the season. Read more on Virtual holiday dinner: Celebrate together when you’re worlds apart…

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[Image: An SPFXMasks employee, left, sprays a layer of paint on a mask called "The Player." That model was used by a white man, right, in a string of robberies in Ohio. An innocent black man was held until the culprit was turned in. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times; Gary Landers / Associated Press)]

Masks so realistic they’re arresting the wrong guy

A white man who robbed Ohio banks looked so convincing in a black-male disguise that an innocent man was held. That’s not exactly how SPFXMasks of Van Nuys had intended its masks to be used.

By Sharon Bernstein, Los Angeles Times
December 8, 2010, 6:21 p.m.

They’re not just for Halloween anymore.

Expensive, realistic masks — the kind that are the hit of the costume party — are increasingly being used out of season, and not always for laughs.

A white bank robber in Ohio recently used a “hyper-realistic” mask manufactured by a small Van Nuys company to disguise himself as a black man, prompting police there to mistakenly arrest an African American man for the crimes.

In October, a 20-year-old Chinese man who wanted asylum in Canada used one of the same company’s masks to transform himself into an elderly white man and slip past airport security in Hong Kong.

Authorities are even starting to think that the so-called Geezer Bandit, a Southern California bank robber believed for months to be an old man, might actually be a younger guy wearing one of the disguises made by SPFXMasks.

News coverage of the incidents has pumped up demand for the masks, which run from $600 to $1,200, according to company owner Rusty Slusser. But he says he’s not happy about it.

“We’re proud of the fact that our masks look real, but I’m not proud of the way they were used,” said Slusser, a 39-year-old former makeup artist. Read more on Masks so realistic they’re arresting the wrong guy…

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Apple patent reveals plans for holographic display

Television and cinema screens that produce holographic images without the need for special glasses are being developed by computer giant Apple.

By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent
26 Dec 2010

A recently granted patent reveals that Apple, the company behind the iPod and iPhone, has been working on a new type of display screen that produces three dimensional and even holographic images without the need for glasses.

The technology could be used to produce a new generation of televisions, computer monitors and cinema screens that would provide viewers with a more realistic experience. Read more on Apple patent reveals plans for no-glasses holographic display…

[From MIT's

Attending the Christmas Party as a Robot

Office parties can be even more trying when you send an electronic avatar in your place.

Tom Simonite 12/22/2010

My recollections of the Technology Review holiday party, which took place yesterday, are a whirl of awkward shouted conversations, blurred vision and an embarrassing incident where I ran into a wall. Fortunately that’s only because I was attending as a robot rather than in person. The party took place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while I was sat safely in my office in San Francisco, California. Read more on Attending the Christmas party as a telepresence robot…

[From AP via

Robot Waiters In China Never Lose Patience

by The Associated Press
JINAN, China
December 22, 2010

Service with a smile also comes with an electronic voice at the Dalu Robot restaurant, where the hotpot meals are not as famous yet as the staff who never lose their patience and never take tips.

The restaurant, which opened this month in Jinan in northern Shandong province, is touted as China’s first robot hotpot eatery where robots resembling Star Wars droids circle the room carrying trays of food in a conveyor belt-like system.

More than a dozen robots operate in the restaurant as entertainers, servers, greeters and receptionists. Each robot has a motion sensor that tells it to stop when someone is in its path so customers can reach for dishes they want. Read more on Robots fill roles at new China hotpot restaurant…