The Left Lane
Dog and photo show

Sony's Jon Piazza holds Aibo, a robotic dog that uses artificial intelligence to respond to commands. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

Plus, said company spokesman Jon Piazza (above), he's cute.

The LM series, trotted out at last weekend's Sony Expo at the Ala Moana Hotel, is more generally appealing than incarnations aimed at robotics enthusiasts (such as Aibo ERS-210, which can wirelessly access your e-mail and read it to you out loud).

LM robo-dogs (the letters stand for Latte and Macaron, the names of the cream and gray-colored models) can't do that, but they do have voice-recognition talents (you can name your pet, and they'll answer to it).

And with motion sensors and cameras, they can be set to snap a picture of anything that moves.Which may turn out to be its master, fainting (price tag: $850).

Calling card

Heidi Fleiss plans to hit college campuses.

She's also been pitching an unrated DVD/video, "How to Be a First-Class Madam," and working on a one-woman show and new book that profiles former call girls, tentatively titled "A Hooker Book."

Her show will start on the East Coast in February. "If it goes well," she said, "I'll hit every college."

And what about Sizemore? "So far, so good," she reports. "Relationships are more difficult than dieting."

Vocal chords

Daniel Ho has collaborated with Steve Sano, an associate professor of music at Stanford University, to create this how-to music book that includes a CD, in which they go over basic lessons, delineating strings and chords.

The process is similar to a classroom lesson, with the instructor leading the "lecture" with the valuable show-and-tell. You hear the tunings, the chords, if you're paying attention.

Simply, they let more than their fingers do the talking.

The book contains chapters on the history of slack key, the secrets of tuning, and other revelations such as how to create your own arrangements.