Think your online community has some members who go overboard in giving virtual hugs? Watch out, the cyber hug suit may be coming sooner than you think. Although right now the Singaporean researcher James Teh has only designed a chicken-sized version, he wants to develop a human version that would, for example, allow a traveling parent to hug a child. The jacket transmits pressure and vibration to the chicken wearing the suit. If this technology proliferates, there will be no stopping the compulsive huggers.
I’m not sure which part of this story is stranger - feeling a need to hug a bird with the intelligence of a Pet Rock, or visualizing a business-person donning a sensor-suit in his/her hotel room before calling home. Then again, with the fears about avian flu, it’s no doubt much safer to hug your favorite chicken from a safe distance.
There is appeal to the hug-suit concept, though. The TomorrowYesterday blog delicately suggests that, “soon you will be able to send your squeeze and caress to exactly the part of a person’s body you want.” Lot 49 proposes that a thermal component be added.
It seems more likely to me that adult product development for virtual embraces is likely to ramp up more quickly than the fowl-hugging industry.
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