You will soon be able to add a little warmth to a long distance hug with a wearable robot that detects emotions.
Credit: iStockphoto
MEGEVE, FRANCE: Now you really can reach out and hug someone through the Internet, with the help of a wearable robot that detects emotions in messages and provides an appropriate physical sensation.
Five years in the making, the device aims to inject a little physicality into online chatter, boosting the emotional quotient of virtual exchanges between flesh-and-blood people.
Forget emoticons, those annoying little smiley :-) or frowning :-( faces added to text messages with keystrokes.
Robot is proof of concept
The quickened thump of an angry heart beat, a spine-tingling chill of fear, or that warm-all-over sensation sparked by true love - all can be felt even as your eyes stay glued to a computer screen.
The proof-of-concept robot, dubbed iFeel_IM! ("I feel therefore I am"), was presented this month at the first Augmented Human International Conference, held in the French Alps ski resort of Megeve.
A two-day gathering of engineers and scientists, many from Japan, compared notes on cutting edge research in a field called augmented reality, the realtime enhancement of experience through virtual, interactive technology.
Electrodes to decipher emotions
Smart phones that tell you not just where you are but what you are looking at, or Terminator-like visual overlays of data for soldiers in battle are both examples.
Several research teams in Megeve also unveiled breakthroughs in the use of brain waves - captured by electrodes placed on the head - to operate computers or decipher emotions.
But Dzmitry Tsetserukou, an assistant professor at Toyohashi University of Technology in Japan, said his aim was to boost feeling, to add a human-like sense of touch to the incorporeal ether of cyberspace.
Connecting through touch
"We are steeped in computer-mediated communication - SMS, e-mail, Twitter, Instant Messaging, 3-D virtual worlds - but many people don't connect emotionally," he said in an interview.
"I am looking to create a deep immersive experience, not just a vibration in your shirt triggered by an SMS. Emotion is what give communication life." For now, his prototype robot is a collection of sensors, small motors, vibrators and speakers woven into a series of straps similar to a parachute harness, minus the parachute.
