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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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    China's Hu and Wen get own "fan" website

    BEIJING
    Mon Sep 8, 2008 8:46am EDT
    China's president Hu Jintao (L) shakes hands with premier Wen Jiabao after the closing ceremony of China's parliament, National People's Congress, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing March 18, 2008. REUTERS/China Daily

    BEIJING (Reuters) - Does Chinese President Hu Jintao give you goosebumps? Got the hots for Premier Wen Jiabao? Then Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily has the answer -- join their online fan club.

    Technology  |  Media  |  China

    While Chinese politicians are not normally known for star appeal -- drabness and formal handshakes are more their style -- the People's Daily is making a stab at changing all that on their new "Jin and Bao Fans' Zone" (here).

    "It's to let fans who ardently love the general secretary and premier have a platform to express their emotions, have discussions and communicate," the newspaper wrote on its website on Thursday.

    Hu is also general secretary of the Communist Party.

    The site, which already has almost 97,000 registered fans, is full of stories about the two senior officials, and features pictures of them in happy poses with farmers, students and the aged.

    Afficionados can even leave messages for the two.

    "I really, really, really love our general secretary and premier!!!" wrote one supporter.

    "Wishing big brother Hu and Baobao the best of health!" wrote another.

    "Taotao and Baobao, I will certainly work hard!" said a third, using diminutive forms of their names, which would normally only be reserved for close family members.

    Both men have worked hard to cultivate men-of-the-people images, whether being filmed eating dumplings with coal miners or visiting AIDS patients.

    Still, it is not the first time Wen has appeared online in similar fawning style.

    He has his own Facebook site, though it is not clear whether he set it up himself, and emerged the 10th most popular politician on the social networking site after May's earthquake in Sichuan, where he comforted weeping children.

    (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jerry Norton)
    Technology
    Media
    China


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