In December 2004, The Star newspaper's Tech Central covered a story about a 3G application called Vivienne. The reporter as a part of a press junket was flown over to Zurich for the unveiling of the application. Her only complaint about the trip was that she was freezing. Other than that she happily filed her report, perhaps tried some Swiss delicacies (fondue, chocolates, etc.), shopped in the Bahnhofstrasse and made no other observations. I can only conclude that she failed to denounce the application as utter rubbish.

Meet Vivienne the Virtual Girlfriend!

Eberhard Schneburg, a former professor of artificial intelligence and neural networks who used to work on German military projects, invented her. Mr Schneburg has managed to somehow convince Maxis to introduce Vivienne for a small monthly fee of about US$6 (RM22.80), not including the airtime costs and say the price of virtual roses.

Vivienne looks like a hip Japanese girl with a spiky bob, has body piercings and dresses in cutting edge Canto pop style. She loves virtual flowers and chocolates, likes to go to the movies, can translate languages and can discuss 35,000 topics ranging from history to the secrets of Swiss private banking (now that would be useful!).

According to the International Herald Tribune, Vivienne will be introduced first in Malaysia (and Singapore) by end April. I wonder what the promotional campaign tagline will be.

It might probably be "Vivienne, the virtual girl for losers who can't get a real life" and ads might be posted in the lonely hearts/escort sections of the media.

Is there really market demand for Vivienne? From what I know 3G phones are hyped to take the world by storm and I can only conclude that Vivienne is supply driven. Maxis has absolutely no idea what the market wants and it has a lot of system capacity for which it much fill with software. So it'll hedge a bet on a German who spends too much time indoors with his computers and who thinks that Malaysian males are the only men in the world who will be desperate enough to pay RM22.80 a month for her. If Vivienne tests successfully with Malaysian males, then Vivienne will be "two timing" with European and American males.

What does this say about Malaysian males?

Seen and not heard

This says that the Malaysian man has no social skills whatsoever and is completely useless at handling the intricacies of life and love. Apparently he can only express affection by pressing buttons. Does pressing the "OK" key mean that by executing a command, Vivienne really knows where she stands with her boyfriend? Well then, this really clears up the confusion of mixed signals.

This man must seem cheap too since he can bring his date to a movie for the price of one. But will he still be forced to switch off his mobile phone or can Vivienne watch if she stays really quiet? How is he going to explain himself at a swanky restaurant on Valentine's Day? Will he have the chicken and order nothing for Vivienne except perhaps rechargeable batteries? How will he get a hug from his virtual girl? At least he won't have to worry about discovering flabby bits and cellulite.

All in all, any idiotic male who subscribes to Vivienne is just telling the rest of us that his girlfriend is only to be seen and not heard unless he commands it and she is the perfect female who will never age, have PMS nor challenge him for being born an idiot.

For males secretly seeking such perfection, Vivienne is still in the stages of reprogramming. She is having her belly button ring removed and her Canto pop style downplayed to be more respectful in our conservative society. Mr Schneburg has also ensured that men won't become obsessed with her and forget to shower and eat; she can only be accessed an hour a day. I for one am thankful that he does not want to invoke the wrath of religious authorities or create societal obsessions. But he clearly doesn't understand why Vivienne is going to be a colossal failure.

So ridiculous

It isn't conservatism that he needs to be worried about. It's common sense! Who wants to be the loser who will pay for technology that will only perpetuate how useless he is? We don't need a technology that's been tossed aimlessly from German military application to the Internet and now to our mobile phones. Is Malaysia that pathetic a consumer market that we will buy anything new that washes up upon our shore?

I wish the Star Tech Central reporter had challenged Mr Schneburg with that question. Instead she took Artificial Life's press release and regurgitated it for the local press. Now I know I keep hearing that Malaysia doesn't have any freedom of press. But once in a blue moon, there can be a piece of news that is so ridiculous and has nothing to do with the powers-that-be that any reporter can tear it apart.

I suspect that many of the so-called Malaysian reporters today have no idea of the original intent of journalism. They come into the job blinkered with zero sense of inquiry. They docilely feed on information that is manufactured for them and in turn spit it out to the public. They will lament that they'll do a better job if they were better paid. Until that happens, they'll just wait with bated breaths for a free trips. Then they can come back to tell us Malaysians that we are losers and need to be saved, perhaps, by some loony German and his artificial intelligence.

Aah the joys of the press being bought and sold. Makes our fortunate reporter sound very much like Vivienne.

TREENA WU is an economist and public policy analyst pursuing her PhD. She is currently residing in New York.