A student at the University of Electro-Communications demonstrates the use of "Sense-roid" at the annual Virtual Reality Expo in Tokyo - AFP

Japanese inventors have pushed the frontiers of technology with the ultimate companion for lonely singles - a wired torso-shaped device that you can hug and that hugs you back.

The 'Sense-Roid' looks like a tailor's mannequin with silicon skin and is packed with pressure sensors. It is connected to a jacket worn by the human user that replicates the embrace with the help of air compressors.

The illusion of a mutual hug with the half-humanoid is enhanced by artificial muscles and vibrating devices in the 'tactile jacket', say the inventors from the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo.

"Many people initially feel surprised and uncomfortable about the unusual experience, but they gradually get accustomed to it until they feel comfortable and pleasant," said research team member Nobuhiro Takahashi.

"Usually people feel nothing, or they even feel bad, when they hug strangers, but they experience feelings of satisfaction, love and comfort when they hug a boyfriend or girlfriend," Takahashi said.

"We wondered how humans would feel if they could hug themselves."

He added that the device could be used in medical therapy and to give comfort to elderly people living alone. However, there were no immediate plans to put the gadget into commercial production.

The Sense-Roid is on display at the 3D & Virtual Reality Expo that kicked off in Tokyo on Wednesday.

Did tech-savvy aliens appear above BBC building to grab coverage!

A video that was shot from below the BBC building in London showing ‘white dots’ whizzing across the sky, assumed to be UFOs, has created much excitement all over the UK.

People were left wondering if aliens are getting less camera shy and are embracing the paparazzi, reports the Daily Mail.

A whole crowd gathered to watch as three fast-moving white dots streaked across the London skyline, being quickly followed by two similar sized white dots.

After the five white dots whizzed pass, one larger brighter disc-shaped white object, supposedly the mother UFO was spotted moving around slowly in the sky.

The ‘alien visit’ has attracted different opinions, with one set of people saying that the video could be the work of one of London’s many production houses having the expertise and facilities to mock up a convincing video.

However, the person who circulated the footage on YouTube wrote in order to circumvent the cynical naysayers: “If you believe it's easy photo-shopped why don't you make a video and show us all.”

Police halt Google 'Street View' project in India

Police in the Indian city of Bangalore have ordered Google to stop taking images of the city for its 'Street View' project pending talks with authorities, a company spokesperson said on Tuesday.

Google launched the project in India last month aiming to collect panoramic images of the vast country ranging from its palaces to its slums.

"We received a letter from Bangalore's commissioner of police and are reviewing it. We will not be collecting any more images for Street View until we speak to the police," a Google spokeswoman said.

"We expect to have any issues sorted out soon," she added.

The internet giant launched its 360-degree photographic mapping service amid much fanfare in the technology hub of Bangalore, mounting special cameras on cars and tricycles to collect images.

Street View, which operates in more than 25 countries, has proved hugely popular with users since its launch in the United States in 2007, but it has also run into trouble with several governments concerned about privacy.

In March, France's data privacy regulator imposed a record fine of 100,000 euros ($143,500) on Google for collecting private information while compiling photographs for the project.

Last month the company said it would appeal against a Swiss ruling ordering it to ensure that all people and cars pictured on Street View were unrecognisable.

Google has also agreed to delete private emails and passwords mistakenly picked up from wireless networks in Britain by its Street View cars.

Google now supports five more Indian languages

Internet search engine giant Google on Tuesday announced the expansion of its translation services to include five more Indian languages, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu thus increasing its reach to a potential half a million population.

"Beginning today, you can explore the linguistic diversity of the Indian sub-continent with Google translate, which now supports five new experimental alpha languages: Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu," said Ashish Venugopal, research scientist at Google.

"In India and Bangladesh alone, more than 500 million people speak these five languages. Since 2009, we've launched a total of 11 alpha languages, bringing the current number of languages supported by Google Translate to 63," he wrote in a Google Blog.

Venugopal said one can expect translations for these new alpha languages to be less fluent and include many more untranslated words than some of the more mature languages, like Spanish or Chinese which have much more of the web content that powers its statistical machine translation approach.

"Despite these challenges, we release alpha languages when we believe that they help people better access the multilingual web. If you notice incorrect or missing translations for any of our languages, please correct us; we enjoy learning from our mistakes and your feedback helps us graduate new languages from alpha status," the Google research scientist said.

"Since these languages each have their own unique scripts, we have enabled a transliterated input method for those of you without Indian language keyboards," he said and hoped that the launch of these new alpha languages will help one better understand the Indic (Indo-Aryan languages) web and encourage the publication of new content in Indic languages, taking Google five alpha steps closer to a web without language barriers.

Brit teen behind hacking attacks on CIA, Sony, US Senate website arrested

A 19-year-old British man suspected of masterminding computer hacking attacks on the CIA, the US Senate and Sony from his bedroom, has been arrested.

Ryan Cleary was arrested at his family’s home in Essex after a joint inquiry conducted by Scotland Yard and the FBI, the Daily Mail reports.

He was held hours after the UK’s serious crime unit came under online siege from the hacking group known as LulzSec.

Ryan, described as a loner who ‘lives his life online’, faces the prospect of extradition to the US where he could face 60 years behind bars for allegedly hacking into the CIA and Senate websites.

Ryan’s mother said her son suffers from agoraphobia and attention deficit disorder and had not left his home for four years.

She said he rarely left his bedroom, which consisted of a computer with two monitors, a cooling unit, a broken TV, and a double bed.

Detectives believe he is a ‘major player’ with LulzSec, which has been linked to recent attacks on games firm Sony in which details and passwords of millions of users were accessed.

Man charged with cruelty after 'swallowing rat' on Facebook

A man in the US state of Utah has been charged with animal cruelty after he allegedly ate a live baby rat and posted the video on Facebook, a news report said.

In the video, Andy Ray Harris, 31, from Tooele, Utah, appears to put a tiny, hairless rat in his mouth, before chewing and swallowing it. The video appears to show a small rodent, two to three inches long, lying on top of a notepad.

In fact, Harris picks up the creature, puts it in his mouth, chews and takes a drink through a straw in a giant mug, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

He was charged with the offence in April after police were alerted to the footage online by charity People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

PETA's Martin Mersereau said the organisation received complaints from horrified viewers about the video in March.

Authorities say they recognised the man in the video as Harris as he had previously been known to police in relation to other incidents. Harris pleaded not guilty to the charges of aggravated animal abuse during a brief hearing before Judge Robert Adkins.

He made no comment when leaving court. A pre-trial conference has been scheduled for July 19

Smartphone app to help locate friend in crowd

Can a smartphone app enable meaningful, face-to-face conversation? Engineers are trying to figure it out with a software that helps people locate their friends in a crowd - and make new friends sharing similar interests.

For instance, at a business meeting, the software could remind a user of a forgotten acquaintance's name, or help him make new professional contacts in the same area of research.

Dong Xuan, associate professor of computer science and engineering at Ohio State University, said: "Today, online social networking has advanced dramatically, but our ability to meet people face-to-face hasn't gotten any easier."

Called eShadow, the software uses nearby wireless networks and smartphones' wireless communication technologies to alert users that a friend who also uses the software is in the area and gives directions to that friend's location, according to a Ohio statement.

"We want eShadow to close social gaps and connect people in meaningful ways while keeping the technology non-intrusive and protecting privacy," said Xuan, who led the project.

As to users' safety, Xuan feels that, at least for some situations, meeting someone in person is safer than meeting them online.

"Online, people can steal others' identity, or lie easily without detection. It's much harder to pull off a masquerade in person," he said.

The name eShadow comes from the idea that users input their interests into the software, and their smartphone broadcasts those interests to certain other users of the software - but only within 50 yards of the phone. So as users move, the broadcast follows them around like a shadow.

In outdoor tests, they measured how fast the software could detect users who were 20, 30, and 50 yards apart. They tested different numbers of users, from two to seven.

In all cases, the software was able to connect people within about half a minute - an average of 25 seconds for two users, and 35 seconds for seven.

Xuan noted that eShadow's algorithms could be useful beyond socialising. Soldiers could use something akin to eShadow to locate each other on the battlefield.

These findings were presented at the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS) Thursday in Minneapolis.