Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Remote pet care

If you don't trust your friends to remember to feed the cat
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When people go on the run from the police, on holiday or whatever, they sometimes need to ask someone to feed the cat. Other options are also feasible, one of which is to get the domestic robot to do it for you, but in that case you might have to hang about for a bit while they're being invented before you can bugger off to Tenerife or Argentina for a bit. Also, there's an issue of trust here.
My proposed solution is this: install a device containing tins of pet food, fish food, a camera, microphone and speaker, a glove and a phial containing essence of your personal armpit and groin as extracted by [spidermother]'s liquid nitrogen thingy, hook it up to a cellular network or internet connection and go away.
Then, set an alarm on your 'phone to go off when it's time to feed the cat or fish and proceed to do it yourself via a user interface application on the 'phone and a gauntlet which plugs into it. You can see, hear and talk to the pet, open cans of food, feed the fish and even stroke the animals if they're mammals. The pet trusts the remote rover doing all this because it smells of you and sounds like you - vision may be a less important sense to them than us, depending on the species. In the case of the aquarium, a screensaver on your 'phone displays the view from the camera.
If the connection is interrupted or something else, an automatic schedule is evoked so the animals continue to be cared for.
nineteenthly, May 11 2009

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       The first virus on this would make the contraption relentlessly pinch the cat, so it goes straight for you when you come back. Advanced versions would show you a live feed of the live feed, only somewhere along the way the hand would begin to strangle the cat, giving you the possiblility to buy it's safety via PayPal.
loonquawl, May 11 2009
  

       [Loonquawl], you're an evil genius.
[Bigsleep] right, i see, but if it didn't dispense food, which seems like the most basic function of all, what did it actually do? Just walk the dog or something?
nineteenthly, May 11 2009
  

       Good. That programme's completely new to me, by the way, so i'll have to look out for the right bit, see if it's on YouTube or summat.
nineteenthly, May 11 2009
  
      
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