Do androids dream...
I met an android today. Her name is EveR 1 and she's beautiful! I wish I'd had my camera with me but I didn't - though she's famous enough that there's several articles about her online - and this is what she looks like:
So a bunch of us from work decided to walk down to the Coex center where Microsoft was having its Mobile and Embedded Dev Con for Korea - Jae, one of the devs from my team here was making a presentation so we figured we'd come and cheer him on. The same building was also where SEK 2006 was being held - that's the Solutions and Contents Exhibition of Korea, and it's supposed to be the largest info-tech exhibition in the country. EveR1 actually opened the exhibition, introducing some of the big participants and all that sort of thing - she was brilliant! She has facial expressions and smiles and blinks and everything. She can't walk but she talks and waves and it's pretty insanely cool!
The other exhibits were also pretty neat - tons of big companies had staked out their territory in this huge huge room and were showing off all their latest toys. The most elaborate display was by this company called Haansoft that's trying to directly compete with Microsoft by having an online version of office productivity software that runs on Java/AJAX and is completely free - it looks exactly like MS Office and they have exactly the same UI and the same sort of look and buttons and Word and Excel and Powerpoint - I'm not sure whether they're walking on very solid legal ground but it was fun to check them out. And they had these two gorgeous girls in gold glittery outfits playing rock'ed out versions of classical pieces on violins on a stage (kinda the Vanessa Mae style) so they were definitely drawing big crowds. Microsoft had its own corner too and a horde of respectful admirers sitting on the floor around some of our sales folks demo-ing Vista and Office 12. Felt pretty good to see that and feel a part of it. And letsee... what else - I drooled over portable media players, spent some time watching a bunch of college kids playing Dead or Alive on XBox kiosks, managed to stop myself from pocketing some gorgeous mp3 players, checked out cellphones of all shapes and colors and sizes, did hi-fives with the rest of the team every time we saw a Windows Mobile device, watched replays on huge huge gigantic screens of Korean footballers kicking past the Italian goalkeeper in 2002 and wild crowds erupting in red frenzy, bought myself a pineapple Fanta (nice, better than the standard orange), stood in front of a two wheeled robot chanting "Dae Han Min Kuk!", laughed at another robot with Einstein's head, decided I want to get me a new laptop - one of those ultra sleek ultra light ones, and generally spent a very nice afternoon geeking out.
Also had Korean bingsu for the last time today - if I ever ended up making a "Top 5 desserts of all time and space", then bingsu would definitely be in that list. It's definitely the most amazing thing I've tried out here in Korea - it's a bowl full of very finely crushed ice, almost snow, and then they pour fruits and ice cream or frozen yogurt and this amazing sweet red bean paste over that, and the final result is heaven! Specially if the fruits are like pineapple and kiwi and cherries, which are all my favorites.
Sigh...
I'm definitely going to miss that. Along with a ton of other things about Seoul - it's always sad to leave a city just when you start getting comfortable in it - I mean, I've just about reached a point where I don't feel lost and an outsider anymore and now it's time to leave. Although it'll be nice to go home too - I miss Seattle and it's going to be wonderful to see the crowd back there again. It's funny though how my mental state has oscillated from "Wow, this is so exciting" to "Where am I??" to "Hmmm... I think I'm beginning to figure this out" to "Bummer, no, I'm not" to "This is awesome fun" to "Sob, I wanna go home!" to "Ok, I'm finally getting this" to "Awww... now I'm going to miss Seoul!" through the past three weeks. But I'm very very glad I came and I think on the whole I had a fabulous time and I absolutely would love to come back here some day.
Anyway, gotta pack now - my flight's at 10 am tomorrow and it takes an hour and a half to get to the airport, so basically I've got to leave the hotel at some obscene time.
And my next update's going to be from downtown Tokyo.
So a bunch of us from work decided to walk down to the Coex center where Microsoft was having its Mobile and Embedded Dev Con for Korea - Jae, one of the devs from my team here was making a presentation so we figured we'd come and cheer him on. The same building was also where SEK 2006 was being held - that's the Solutions and Contents Exhibition of Korea, and it's supposed to be the largest info-tech exhibition in the country. EveR1 actually opened the exhibition, introducing some of the big participants and all that sort of thing - she was brilliant! She has facial expressions and smiles and blinks and everything. She can't walk but she talks and waves and it's pretty insanely cool!
The other exhibits were also pretty neat - tons of big companies had staked out their territory in this huge huge room and were showing off all their latest toys. The most elaborate display was by this company called Haansoft that's trying to directly compete with Microsoft by having an online version of office productivity software that runs on Java/AJAX and is completely free - it looks exactly like MS Office and they have exactly the same UI and the same sort of look and buttons and Word and Excel and Powerpoint - I'm not sure whether they're walking on very solid legal ground but it was fun to check them out. And they had these two gorgeous girls in gold glittery outfits playing rock'ed out versions of classical pieces on violins on a stage (kinda the Vanessa Mae style) so they were definitely drawing big crowds. Microsoft had its own corner too and a horde of respectful admirers sitting on the floor around some of our sales folks demo-ing Vista and Office 12. Felt pretty good to see that and feel a part of it. And letsee... what else - I drooled over portable media players, spent some time watching a bunch of college kids playing Dead or Alive on XBox kiosks, managed to stop myself from pocketing some gorgeous mp3 players, checked out cellphones of all shapes and colors and sizes, did hi-fives with the rest of the team every time we saw a Windows Mobile device, watched replays on huge huge gigantic screens of Korean footballers kicking past the Italian goalkeeper in 2002 and wild crowds erupting in red frenzy, bought myself a pineapple Fanta (nice, better than the standard orange), stood in front of a two wheeled robot chanting "Dae Han Min Kuk!", laughed at another robot with Einstein's head, decided I want to get me a new laptop - one of those ultra sleek ultra light ones, and generally spent a very nice afternoon geeking out.
Also had Korean bingsu for the last time today - if I ever ended up making a "Top 5 desserts of all time and space", then bingsu would definitely be in that list. It's definitely the most amazing thing I've tried out here in Korea - it's a bowl full of very finely crushed ice, almost snow, and then they pour fruits and ice cream or frozen yogurt and this amazing sweet red bean paste over that, and the final result is heaven! Specially if the fruits are like pineapple and kiwi and cherries, which are all my favorites.
Sigh...
I'm definitely going to miss that. Along with a ton of other things about Seoul - it's always sad to leave a city just when you start getting comfortable in it - I mean, I've just about reached a point where I don't feel lost and an outsider anymore and now it's time to leave. Although it'll be nice to go home too - I miss Seattle and it's going to be wonderful to see the crowd back there again. It's funny though how my mental state has oscillated from "Wow, this is so exciting" to "Where am I??" to "Hmmm... I think I'm beginning to figure this out" to "Bummer, no, I'm not" to "This is awesome fun" to "Sob, I wanna go home!" to "Ok, I'm finally getting this" to "Awww... now I'm going to miss Seoul!" through the past three weeks. But I'm very very glad I came and I think on the whole I had a fabulous time and I absolutely would love to come back here some day.
Anyway, gotta pack now - my flight's at 10 am tomorrow and it takes an hour and a half to get to the airport, so basically I've got to leave the hotel at some obscene time.
And my next update's going to be from downtown Tokyo.
posted by Ritu at 4:52 AM
1 Comments:
I bet the robot is powered by a hydroelectric wheel.
*aaha it can go front and it can go back!!*
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