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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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    Subway announcer fired over spoof messages

    LONDON
    Mon Nov 26, 2007 11:37am EST
    A London underground sign is pictured below Big Ben, London September 3, 2007. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor

    LONDON (Reuters) - An official announcer for London's Tube system has been sacked after making spoof messages mocking American tourists, peeping Toms and sweaty commuters.

    Technology

    Voiceover artist Emma Clarke, 36, recorded the announcements in the same smooth tones that have warned millions of passengers to "Mind The Gap" and posted them on her Web site.

    The messages include:

    * "We would like to remind our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loudly."

    * "Would the passenger in the red shirt pretending to read the paper but who is actually staring at that woman's chest please stop. You are not fooling anyone, you filthy pervert."

    * "Would passengers filling in answers on their Sudokus please accept that they are just crosswords for the unimaginative and are not in any way more impressive just because they contain numbers."

    * "Here we are crammed again into a sweaty Tube carriage ... If you're female smile at the bloke next to you and make his day. He's probably not had sex for months."

    Clarke said it was "just a bit of a laugh". But Tube operator Transport for London (TfL) failed to see the funny side and dropped her, after eight years.

    "London Underground is sorry to have to announce that further contracts for Miss Clarke are experiencing severe delays," a TfL spokesman told the Evening Standard on Monday.

    All the recordings are at: www.emmaclarke.com/fun/mind-the-gap/spoof-london-underground-announcements.

    (Reporting by Peter Griffiths)
    Technology


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