LIAR! LIAR! CELL PHONE ON FIRE!

New research shows that most people feel more comfortable lying to you via cell phone than abusing the truth when they are with you. People are also more comfortable lying via email and personal digital assistants.

This has big implications.

If salespeople feel more comfortable telling whoppers about their products' attributes via email, computers and cell phones, the world's purchasing agents had better watch out. The expression, "Don't buy a pig in a poke" may be replaced with "Don't buy a pig in a Blackberry." (Feel free to substitute any digital brand of your choosing in the expression.)

What would that great, ancient Greek biographer of philosophers do? While Diogenes wrote great tomes during his day job, at night he lighted his lantern and went about knocking on doors, peering into faces, looking for one honest man. Rumor has it, he didn't find any. (Women were not considered worth interviewing in ancient Greece.)

But what if he lived in modern times and had to interview on the phone? Or query over the internet? Could he have found any honest men (or women)?

The Japanese think not.

Attempting to find one honest taxi cab driver using the modern means of inquiry, taxi company managers have failed miserably.

Apparently no self-respecting Japanese taxi driver will own up to the question, "Have you been drinking?" Japanese bus drivers never admit to being drunk on the job.

As a result, each year Japan experiences more than 700 fatalities and over 14,000 accidents due to drunken driving – all caused by tipsy drivers.

But the Japanese are very creative when it comes to inventive electronic devices. Mobil operator KIDDI has created a system called ALC-Mobile which measures the intoxication level of a driver and sends the results to the company via phone. If the system detects a boozy driver, it also sends the driver's photo and GPS location while setting off alarm bells at headquarters.

It is very difficult to lie over a phone which is measuring your breath for your blood alcohol level.

What's next?

How about an eye in the computer screen which photographs the lustful facial expressions of child pornographers and sends a warning signal to the local precinct? Or an imbedded computer eye which records the greedy facial expressions of CEOs in the process of back-dating their stock options? Or an electronic eye which detects the lying expressions of lobbyists and defense contractors in the act of promising high quality and low costs while planning to deliver the reverse?

If the Japanese have their way, liars of the world had better unite. You have nothing to lose but your careers.

Better raise the "privacy issue."

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