The Foreign Post - FPI

Barcelona (AFP) – The Mobile World Congress (MWC) is primarily a pow-wow for the big-wigs of the telecom industry, but far from the main thoroughfares of the vast conference there are always hidden tech gems.

Here are some of the most offbeat products spotted by AFP.

Eternal clone

As advertising slogans go, "you can live forever" is up there with the best.

That is how Memori Yamato explains the "personalised AI clone" from her Japanese company Alt Inc.

"Your descendants can continue to speak and interact with you, even after your death," Yamato told AFP.

The idea is to upload as many videos, images and audio samples as you can while alive.

The system will use it to generate an AI mirror, cloning you forever in the digital world.

"It will look like you, it speaks in your voice, and it even thinks like you," she said.

The idea has been nine years in the making, she said, and feedback from early users suggests the technology has nailed appearances and voices.

Noseprint ID

A dog's nose carries similar identifying traits as a human fingerprint.

South Korean start-up Petnow took this info and ran with it -- like a dog after a stick -- to create a biometric database of pets based on noseprints rather than microchips.

"Since the 1940s, we've known that dogs' noses worked a little like fingerprints," the firm's Peter Jung told AFP.

He explained that around 100,000 animals are abandoned each year in South Korea, often because owners cannot afford vet bills.

"Less than 10 percent have chips because people don't like the process," he said.

Petnow just requires a photo and AI does the rest, ensuring the photos are good enough for identity purposes.

Jung says 50,000 pet owners have signed up since last year and he hopes the government will change the rules to allow his system to replace chips.

And cat lovers need not worry. Their noses may be too petite to be identifiable, but each feline face is unique and can be used in the system.

Flying taxi

A staple from the pages of science-fiction and the dream of the super-rich, flying taxis could be with us as soon as 2025, according to SK Telecom.

At the MWC, some attendees got an early taste, thanks to VR headsets and a real-life prototype complete with juddering seats.

Halfway between a helicopter and a drone, the craft has six electric motors that allow vertical take-offs and landings.

It can carry up to four passengers and move at speeds of up to 320 kilometres (198 miles) per hour.

South Korea's biggest telecoms provider developed it with Californian start-up Joby Aviation and hopes it will solve congestion in South Korea's cities without costing the earth.

"In Korea, in urban areas, we have severe traffic congestion, but constructing a mass transportation system like a highway or subway needs many social costs," said the firm's Ken Wohn.

"Using this UAM (Urban Air Mobility) service can shorten our customers' travel time without making so much infrastructure."

Never alone

In the future, we may live our later years in the company of "socially intelligent" robots capable of "building an emotional relationship" with us.

That is the vision of Spanish technology outfit Eurecat, which has developed a robot called NHOA -- or "never home alone".

It is designed to reduce the loneliness of older people living at home.

The orange and white robot stands 160 cm tall and can be controlled with a touchscreen and by voice.

Eurecat's David Mari said the aim was not to replace human relationships but to "humanise" the applications and connected objects used by older people.

Karen Frommer, enjoying a meal at an upscale restaurant in Manhattan, shrugs when asked about the Big Apple's ban on the sale, consumption and possession of the controversial delicacy.

"We will never be able to deal with vegans at all," the 78-year-old tells AFP.

"But if they are always focused on the feeding of the ducks, let them watch a film on a slaughtering process of lambs, or housing of chickens in huge buildings," she adds.

The retiree developed a taste for foie gras in southwestern France half a century ago and often eats it terrine, whole or pan-friend at the restaurant 15East @ Tocqueville.

For director Marco Moreira, a Brazilian of Italian origin, "It's hard to imagine no fine dining without foie gras."

For now he doesn't have to, as the courts consider a challenge to New York City's ban that was supposed to take effect last November.

All of the foie gras in New York is made exclusively in the state of 20 million people, as France no longer exports the controversial delicacy.

Ex-NYC mayor Bill de Blasio signed off on municipal legislation outlawing foie gras in November 2019, following a similar move in California and after lobbying by animal welfare associations.

Lawmakers ruled it was cruel to force-feed ducks and geese to fatten their livers for human consumption, and the ban prohibiting any establishment from selling, serving or even possessing foie gras was due to take effect three years after its passage.

But last September, New York state's two largest duck farms and foie gras producers -- Hudson Valley Foie Gras Farm and La Belle Farm -- won a stay on the ban from a local court.

Late last year, restaurant owners and farmers then won the support of the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, which challenged the legality of New York City's law.

The dispute deepened further when in January the city, led since last year by center-right Democrat and vegan Eric Adams, countered by suing the state to get the ban back in place.

Farmer and producer Marcus Henley is equally certain of his rights, with foie gras legal everywhere else in New York state.

Resembling an old rocker, and with a slow, soft-spoken delivery, the vice president of Hudson Valley Foie Gras Farm gives AFP a tour of his huge duck and chicken operation in Ferndale, two hours northwest of Manhattan.

'Worrisome' -

Employing 320 mostly Latin American farm workers who force-feed, slaughter, bleed, pluck and then remove the livers from the ducks, Henley says he generates $25 million in annual sales.

He would lose a quarter of that if the ban comes into force.

"Anytime you go into court, it's always a little worrisome," the 66-year-old says.

"(But) you can't pass a local law that negatively impacts farming in a state-certified agricultural district," he adds, showing off pens full of tens of thousands of ducks, which are raised from three days old until they are killed at 105 days.

Under huge, creaking sheds amid a pungent smell typical of poultry farming, three-month-old ducks are force-fed with compressor machines bearing plastic pipes and tubes that send grain mixed with water into their gizzards.

The practice is banned in several countries, including Britain.

"I can tell you as a farmer, that, no, absolutely not, the animals don't suffer," insists Henley, who believes the gizzard has a natural storage function.

"It's easy to anthropomorphize," says the trained scientist. (But) animals and people are different," he adds.

Bryan Pease, a lawyer for the Voters for Animal Rights association, which worked on the New York law, is shocked by the ducks' treatment.

"The vast majority of people believe that all animals deserve to be humanely treated, even animals raised for food," he told AFP.

Pease is convinced that foie gras will disappear from New York City tables for good "in a few months."

But until judges rule on the final decision, all predictions are for now just speculation.

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