AS THE online poker company PartyGaming gears up for a £5 billion float, I hear of a threat to the burgeoning internet gambling industry. Computer geeks are working on programmes that can mimic human players, so-called poker robots, or bots, and beat them.

The bots are not quite clever enough yet, but online bookies such as PartyGaming are trying to protect their customers by running tests to spot any bots and throw them off the site. “Bots don’t act like humans and humans don’t act like bots,” says the company, which has a team of 100 on the problem.

There is even a men-versus-machines tournament at Las Vegas next month. Punters are not happy. “There are already lots of robots playing online and that’s definitely unethical. They should identify themselves,” one professional says.

The tests may request the suspect to carry out a certain action. Because they are automatic, they don’t. This, computer experts will recognise, is a simple version of the “Turing test” invented by the British cyberneticist Alan Turing to assess whether a computer can pass as intelligent. What a strange new world we live in.

TODAY sees the arrival of the first New Zealand company on the Alternative Investment Market, with the flotation of the IT security specialist Endace. Ian Graham, the chairman, was asked on the roadshow why, given that the company has a substantial presence in the American market, it did not choose Nasdaq, the high-tech US exchange. “We can’t talk rugby with Americans,” he replied.

Sinking feeling

JOHN PRESCOTT has received a rare honour — honorary life membership of the Baltic Exchange, London’s commercial shipping centre. The last politicians to receive this were Winston Churchill and Clem Attlee half a century ago. The award is to recognise “his services to the shipping industry”, the Baltic says.

Well, he was in the Merchant Navy, I suggest. Er, no, it is because of the welcome introduction of the tonnage tax in 2000, says Jeremy Penn, the Baltic’s chief executive. “I’m sure his interest in shipping arises from that era in his life.”

TOMORROW is the formal launch at Portcullis House, the new parliamentary building, of the fightback by Manchester United supporters against the Malcolm Glazer takeover of the club. You have to admire the fans, who show all the resilience of the Liverpool team when three goals down against AC Milan the other week. The plan is that they sell their remaining shares and use the money to buy the club, when it comes back on the market, and they already have “several millions” pledged to a special fund. Sweet.

Blown away

DRAMATIC scenes at the Paris Air Show, where Rolls-Royce executives gathered outside the company chalet to watch the half-mile take-off of the new A380 megajumbo, which uses their engines. The aircraft is quiet, but generates quite a backdraft. Two minutes after take-off, the gale duly arrived, and demolished all the chairs, tables and umbrellas outside the next-door chalet, taken by Rolls-Royce’s bitter rival GE. The British stand was untouched.

The plane finally touched down again, to polite cheers from the Brits and a stony silence from the Americans.

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