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Vincent Padois, head tutor at the Pierre and Marie Curie University who teaches robotics and is babysitting the Paris ICub, makes a demonstration with ICub robot, a ?hybrid embodied cognitive system for a humanoid robot" about 1 metre (3.2 feet) high, at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris September 4, 2009. Six versions of ICub exist in laboratories across Europe, where scientists are painstakingly tweaking its electronic brain to make it capable of learning, just like a human child and hoping it will learn how to adapt its behaviour to changing circumstances, offering new insights into the development of human consciousness. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

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    Sssh!! Russia's oldest theater hushes cell phones

    MOSCOW
    Thu Mar 1, 2007 7:57pm EST
    People watch a performance marking the 250th anniversary of the Alexandrinsky Theater, which re-opened after 15 months of refurbishment, in St. Petersburg August 30, 2006. Russia's oldest theater has installed equipment to block cell phone signals in a desperate attempt to force patrons to stop taking calls during performances, Itar-Tass news agency reported on Thursday. REUTERS/Alexander Demianchuk

    MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's oldest theater has installed equipment to block cell phone signals in a desperate attempt to force patrons to stop taking calls during performances, Itar-Tass news agency reported on Thursday.

    Plays, operas, ballets and films in Russia are routinely punctuated by the trilling of cell phones and many patrons are unashamed about chatting in defiance of terse warnings to turn phones off at the start of the evening.

    "Although the technology is rather expensive, our theater accepted the costs in order to protect the artists from unpleasant surprises," said Alexander Chepurov of St Petersburg's Alexandrinsky theater, which was founded in 1756.

    He said one actor had been forced to deal with "noises off" the only way he could, declaiming: "Turn off that stupid phone and let me finish my soliloquy!"


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