At BoingBoing today, they note that a Hong Kong company has created a virtual girlfriend for your cellphone. It struck me, as I read this, how similar it is to an idea that appears in Adrian Bedford‘s novel Orbital Burn.
Unlike the sophisticated AI described by Adrian, the cell-phone AI is mostly designed to part lonely geeks from their money:
If players neglect her, she will refuse to speak.
The company says the amount of money players will have to spend has yet to be determined.
But unlike other computer games, it seems that cash, not skill, will enable players to climb the different levels in the game. *