also in the new york times yesterday, you can sign up for a 3g girlfriend:
If you marry her in a virtual ceremony, you even end up with a virtual mother-in-law who really does call you in the middle of the night on your cellphone to ask where you are and whether you have been treating her daughter right.
…
Vivienne, the product of computerized voice synthesis, streaming video and text messages, is meant not only to bring business to Artificial Life (she will be available for a monthly fee of $6, not including the airtime costs paid to cellphone operators or the price of virtual chocolates and flowers). But she is also meant to be a lure for the new, higher-tech, third generation, or 3G, cellphones.
Vivienne, who may soon be joined by a virtual boyfriend for women and, after that, a virtual boyfriend for gay men and a virtual girlfriend for lesbians, is at the leading edge of a wave of services that companies are developing to take advantage of the much faster data transmission rates made possible by 3G technology.
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Vivienne’s largest database is for processing those difficult conversations about romance and intimacy. “People will see that they can’t have sex with her, but they’ll try to,” and Vivienne has many ways to hold them off, Mr. Schöneburg said.
Vivienne is fairly prudish, partly because Artificial Life is hoping the market will include teenagers from affluent families. Artificial Life has been contacted by companies interested in the development of a racier version, and perhaps even a pornographic version, and may license the technology but will not enter that market itself.
Partly to prevent anyone from becoming addicted to Vivienne’s charms, the program will limit users to an hour of play time a day.
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Users eager to advance quickly toward a virtual kiss or even marriage should know that she has a faintly mercenary appreciation for gifts, from flowers and chocolates to cars and diamond rings. Some virtual gifts are free, but others will require users to make real charges against their monthly phone bills of 50 cents to $2.
not that virtual dating games are anything new, as they’ve been popular (mostly in asia) for years and years. but that’s something you can play with on your own time without it having the ability to call on you and interrupt your real life. suddenly, now you’re talking about something that’s tamagotchi v3 (3g?).
it’s not unlike the ilovebees alternate reality game last year that integrated fake corrupted websites, emails, and phone calls, ultimately to promo the release of halo 2.
now you’re paying for the priviledge of being called by virtual mothers-in-law and getting harrassed for not taking good enough care of their virtual daughters. and if you can’t turn it off, where will it end? will they call you up and demand that $2 diamond ring because you haven’t paid enough sms attention to them?
creepy. and to think i was all worked up earlier this week because i you can now buy sports illustrated swimsuit edition mobile phone wallpaper. that’s kid stuff.
you can see the bad hollywood pitch already:
at first it was a harmless game. a virtual wife for a lonely working guy. then he tired of the novelty and cancelled the service, but the calls kept on coming. his virtual wife kept calling, threatening him with jealous rages. and then his friends started dying…
MOBILE ATTRACTION: where caller id can’t help you
starring freddie prinz jr. and meeno peluce. coming to a 3g phone near you this fall.
Posted at February 25, 2005 7:50 AMhah….meeno peluce!
i had almost forgotten about him! you just made my day…:)
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