Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Monday 17/09/01

Computer viruses are almost entirely unpleasant. They creep up on your data, jam your Internet connection, greedily gobble your hard disk and make everything about your computing life a misery. About the only good thing about them is that you can just turn off your PC and go and watch television - something the original writers should try a little more often.

But even this small comfort is being removed by Fujitsu. Oh, sure, the company claims it is advancing science and technology by creating a reprogrammable humanoid robot called Hoap-1. The engineers may seem proud of the fact that they've created the perfect test bed for wannabe roboticists, a beautifully produced miniature android that runs a version of Linux so your existing programming skills can be put to work immediately. But really, they're laughing their socks off. Forget about email attachments that send your love letters to half of the Western world, once the hackers get hold of this one, it'll follow you around the house, steal your underwear and paint your cat purple.

We ain't seen nothing yet.