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Super XGA - By CLIVE THOMPSONWhen cat lovers go on vacation and leave their animals behind, theyusually worry neurotically: did they leave enough food in the bowl forFluffy? But there isn't much they can do about it. That is, unlessthey've got what Karen Lurker's got -- a pet feeder you can controlfrom anywhere in the world using your mobile phone.Lurker, a spokeswoman for NTT DoCoMo, a Japanese mobile-phone company,is in her gleaming showroom in Manhattan, introducing thegunmetal-gray 'I See Pet' feeder. It's about the size and shape of asquat coffee-maker, and it stares at you like a cyclops with onerobotized eye. "That's actually a Webcam," she notes. "It'llbroadcast whatever's happening in your house and send the picture toyour phone. So when you're at work, you can pull out your mobile andsee how the cats are doing." If they're looking hungry? Lurker hits abutton on the keypad, and the robot feeder clicks once -- thendisgorges a pile of M&M's into the food tray. ("That candy's just forour guests," she adds hastily. "Obviously you'd be feeding them realpet food.") Customers asked the manufacturer, AlphaOmega Soft, toinstall a speaker too, so that they could talk to their pets whileaway on a business trip. But the company "figured that would probablyjust freak the pet out too much," Lurker says.The device goes on sale in the United States early next year, andwhen it does, it'll give us yet another weird way to use today'smobile phones: as teleportation devices. DoCoMo is hardly alone inthis endeavor. A consortium of high-tech heavyweights called theInternet Home Alliance is wiring entire houses in Boston so that theycan be remotely manipulated by mobile phone -- turning kitchenappliances on and off from the supermarket, for example.http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/magazine/16CELL.html
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