The Google fembot

The Times reported yesterday on Google's guiding principles.

Google rules

Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted to “organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”, while holding true to their unofficial slogan “don’t be evil”. They wrote this list of “ten things we know to be true” when Google was just a few years old.

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow. 
2. It’s best to do one thing really, really well. 
3. Fast is better than slow. 
4. Democracy on the web works. 
5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer. 
6. You can make money without doing evil. 
7. There’s always more information out there. 
8. The need for information crosses all borders. 
9. You can be serious without a suit. 
10. Great just isn't good enough. 

 ---

Once upon a time in the near-to-middle future, Peter was eating his organic, wholemeal muesli when his glance fell upon his wife, leaning over the sink. A soupçon of lust briefly possessed him - and in that moment a Google fembot appeared, slipping through the kitchen door (how did it - she - know?)

A Google fembot

A furtive Peter followed where she beckoned and his breakfast fantasies were sated. His long-suffering partner did her best to ignore the whole sorry proceedings, a part of her breathing a sigh of relief.

Walking down his drive to the Google car, which had appeared as if by magic as he left the house, Peter pondered on the fembot's last silky words, breathed in his ear as she prepared to vanish.

"I can recommend an excellent book on HyperJava for you. Would you like me to order it?"

How had she known?

In his cubicle at the regional Googleplex, Peter was code-hacking when his team leader breezed by. She smiled as she passed, leaving a trail of perfume, pheromones and charisma. Peter felt an unwanted stirring in his loins but before he could suppress it, a beautiful fembot shimmied across wearing little more than a tee-shirt. Peter had no real alternative; it was corporate policy that all extraneous impulses must be purged - nothing must be allowed to get in the way of concentration.

An exhausted Peter stumbled back to his terminal. The fembot's last words echoed in his head as he sat down and wondered - what on earth would he do ... with his spare copy of HyperJava?