CeBIT opens: Talk to the lederhosen!
CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, March 16, 2007
HANOVER - Traditional German lederhosen with a built-in cellular phone, a bathroom mirror that can give current stock quotes and a BMW sports car that can talk and listen drew the crowds Thursday as the world's top high-tech fair opened.
The CeBIT telecoms, computers and electronics trade fair in the northern German city of Hanover is a showcase of the visionary and the strange each March, and this year is no exception.
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Traditional Bavarian "Lederhosen" (leather trousers) sporting a built-in interface for an MP3 player by the company Lodenfrey is on display at the smartTextiles stand at the CeBIT computer, digital IT and telecommunications fair 16 March 2007 at the fair grounds in Hanover, central Germany.
John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images
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Gallery: The Sights of CeBITLeading the parade of gadgets are the leather trousers preferred by thigh-slapping Bavarian dancers, but this time they have a modern twist: a sewn-in mobile phone.
"Bathroom TV" by German firm Ad Notam allows you to monitor your stock portfolio with a wireless beamer projected on to the mirror. And a waterproof remote control can join you in the bathtub.
Tech-savvy grannies who want to stay in their own homes as long as possible may one day be able to turn their own four walls into an ultra-modern assisted-living facility.
Germany's Fraunhofer Institute has built a small-scale prototype of an "intelligent apartment." If a walking stick falls, a chip inside triggers a loud speaker to ask if granny is alright. If there is no answer, an ambulance is called.
Fraunhofer has also developed a virtual mirror that allows you to design your own shoes, selecting the colours, soles and styles from dozens of options.
The mirror then shows the customer a vision of himself wearing the shoes before he even tries them on.
FAST IN FRANCE
NANCY, France - France will inaugurate on Thursday its fastest rail service to date that will see trains shooting from Paris to the eastern city of Strasbourg at a record speed of 320 kilometres (200 miles) per hour.
The TGV-Est line that opens to passengers on June 10 will also cut travel time to points further east, making the trip from Paris to Luxembourg in about two hours, to Frankfurt in less than four, and to Munich in six hours and fifteen minutes.
"Some 37 million Europeans can be reached," said TGV-Est director Alain Le Guellec. "A network of high-speed links is being put into place with the rest of Europe."
The price of train tickets is expected to increase by 20 to 30 per cent, a prospect that is sure to draw some grumbling from passengers and complaints from local authorities.
THE BIG AND SMALL OF IT
BEIJING - Tibet's capital plans to build a miniature version of its famed Potala Palace to divert "unbearable" tourist pressure overwhelming the ancient landmark, state media reported on Wednesday.
The mini palace would be built at the foot of the landmark with high-tech sound and lighting effects used to create a "vivid and almost real" version, said Qin Yizhi, Communist party chief of Lhasa.
He did not reveal the size of the mini palace or say why he expected tourists would visit it with the real structure so close, according to Xinhua.
The real palace, completed in its present form in 1645 as the seat of Tibet's Buddhist theocracy headed by the Dalai Lama, has been swamped by a flood of tourists since the completion in July last year of a new railway linking the region to the rest of China, Qin said.
