Japanese Build a Virtual Hugging Vest 79
If your only human contact is through a little computer window in a poorly lit room, your life just got a little sadder thanks to Dzmitry Tsetserukou, an assistant professor at Toyohashi University of Technology in Japan. He has designed a collection of motors, sensors, and speakers, stitched into what looks like the straps of a backpack, called the iFeel_IM. The device can simulate a heart beat, the tickling sensation of a butterflies in your stomach, generate warmth and hug even the most repugnant shut-in. From the article: "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." This device is not to be confused with the hugging vest created by engineers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst for people with anxiety disorders and the autistic.
The real hug secret (Score:4, Funny)
The breakthrough, of course, were certain undisclosed details of the two expandable bladders on the upper part of the vest. May or may not have added to realism, but "users didn't care".
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The REAL hug secret
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41X11XJ3FRL._SS500_.jpg [images-amazon.com]
This review is from: Alien Life-Sized Facehugger Plush (Toy)
"On those cold rainy lonely nights every good colonist or marine needs some thing to snuggle up to, and this fits the bill perfectly! What is more comforting than your own personal facehugger? Fully articulated legs and tail ensure a proper grip, so there will be no escape"!
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Aw come on, you posted a picture of an item that can't be bought. [amazon.com]
My little girl would love it. She's 3, and has absolutely no fears. I'm sure she'd torment the neighbor kids with it though. :)
JPod (Score:2, Insightful)
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What Happens If ... (Score:2)
Jesus, 10 years of smoking (Score:1)
"Second Life"? (Score:2)
The griefers will love it.
ASD (Score:2, Interesting)
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I think you forgot booze and cigars. There's no real reason to only introduce two of the four best things in life.
Ahhh, I miss Vegas.
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But artificial mayhem in video games generated by a computer does not desensitize them against real violence?
Somewhere, a behavioral psychologist is quietly crying...
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So wait - artificial physical contact generated by a computer can desensitize people from their real fear of being touched?
But artificial mayhem in video games generated by a computer does not desensitize them against real violence?
Somewhere, a behavioral psychologist is quietly crying...
Your upbringing and society (usually) set appropriate boundaries on violent behavior.
You can't even begin to compare a subset of the population with heavy duty anxiety and/or various spectrum disorders to the average person playing video games. If you want to compare anxiety and/or spectrum disorders with sociopaths, you might be on the right road to a valid comparison.
You just can't claim that certain types of stimuli will equally effect those inside and outside the psychological norm.
Re:ASD (Score:5, Funny)
But only because he was trained to do so whenever a bell rings.
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I'll [geeked.info] just [arcademachinesales.co.uk] leave [worldofstock.com] these [slipperybrick.com] here [geeky-gadgets.com].
Note that I don't really have any problem with violent video games, per se, I just wanted to provide some crystal clear counter examples to your assertion.
I have a (vaguely-defined) threshold for what I consider acceptable, but I won't be out proposing legislation or other censoring measures. Personally, it's more an issue of the overall tone of the game, rather than a body count or how graphic the violence is, that determines whether or not I consider a game approp
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If playing Quake actually felt like getting shot or shooting, then yes, I expect that people who played lots of Quake would get desensitized to real violence. Basic Training puts a soldier through a vague simulation of som
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Somewhere, a behavioral psychologist is quietly crying...
Better get them a virtual hugging vest. They'll feel better in no time.
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'Video game violence' isn't as similar to real-life violence.
OTOH, presumably the artificial physical contact generated by the computer is physically close to the real thing (a lot close to the real thing than artificial game violence is to real violence).
Fembots (Score:4, Funny)
Nothing New Here (Score:3, Informative)
Temple Grandin, an animal welfare advocate and autistic, invented a hug machine [wikipedia.org] in the 1960s
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Was this claimed to be something new?
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Temple Grandin, an animal welfare advocate and autistic
In fairness to the current researchers, igoring previous work from someone who is known primarily as a marketing genius who can sell absurd ideas to the incredibly credulous is probably not a big oversight.
I mean really, claiming that you can think like a cow because you're autistic? Yet somehow she has managed to sell that idiotic idea, to the extent of turning her personal brand into a highly lucrative business. Apparently no one has bothered to ask any cows if she thinks like them, which would be the o
thinking like a cow (Score:2, Informative)
in Grandin's line of work, means being able to predict what a cow will do in a given situation. A famous example is trouble that the cow industry had in giving cows baths. The cows were supposed to walk up a ramp and step into a sunken cow-sized bathtub full of cow-cleaning solution (I'm surely not using the proper cow jargon here, but it doesn't matter). They got nervous and fidgety and fought with each other and caused time-consuming hassle during this operation. Grandin figured out that the cows reac
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Grandin figured out that the cows reacted badly to the prospect of slipping on the ramp, so she told the bathtub crew to add a non-slip surface, which fixed the problem, smoothing out and speeding up the operation and saving the cow guys a lot of money. She did all kinds of similar things in other areas of cow processing. THAT is why she is able to get paid the big bucks, for repeated demonstrable success at solving actual practical cow problems
It's like that story about the consultant who came in to fix a
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Agreed -- but I would hardly call Temple Grandin an "animal welfare advocate" - given that she principally uses her intuitive understanding of animal behavior to make a living designing cattle handling systems for feed lots and slaughterhouses...
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I would hardly call Temple Grandin an "animal welfare advocate"
Yeah, I get your point. That's what she considers herself, though, and I wasn't sure how else to label her beyond "autistic slaughterhouse designer," which isn't really an adequate description. I think that her opinion on the matter is that as long as there are going to be slaughterhouses, they might as well be as humane as possible, which is where the "animal welfare" part figures in.
Just MAKE one (Score:1)
Just build a damn pr0n doll already. These "robotics researchers" are dancing around the bush (figuratively and literally) using odd justifications. We don't want a hug or a Walmart greeter, we want to [beep] something perdy.
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My toilet baroque; it's all Bach'd up despite jiggling the Handel.
That's what you get from 325 year old plumbing. Time to upgrade.
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but it makes such a great pipe organ
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Not quite a robot but internet sex toys do exist, http://highjoy.com/ [highjoy.com]
No replacement for the real thing of course but if your partner is out of town you can still uh, interact ;)
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but if your partner is out of town
The easiest person in the world to tell a lie is yourself.
BEAR HUG (Score:2)
Bear hug bitch! I'm gonna squeeze your brains out remotely.
Other purpsoes (Score:2)
Looks like women can turn that vest around for a different kind of experience.
Those Wacky Japanese (Score:2)
Those wacky Japanese are at it again, I see.
First beer and panties in vending machines, then anatomically correct androids, and now this? Poor, deprived people.
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you mean like
http://www.sciencebuzz.org/blog/robo_care_japanese_robots_will_help_the_elderly [sciencebuzz.org]
or the old exoskeleton:
http://www.c00lstuff.com/798/Japanese_Robotic_Exoskeleton/ [c00lstuff.com]
which as I understand it, the creator refuses to sell to the military (of any country...)
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I'm sure you'll be more than happy with your new [somethingawful.com] robotic overlords [newgrounds.com], too.
Oh my God (Score:2)
Oh my God, this is sad.
Computers are really bad for a lot of people. Get outside and interact with actual people in the sunlight.
Re:Oh my God (Score:5, Funny)
enjoy your skin cancer and communicable diseases
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Computers are really bad for a lot of people. Get outside and interact with actual people in the sunlight.
No kidding. Get off the computer and get a hug [hugegram.com] the old-fashioned way.
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Some people are way too toxic to interact with others. They _should_ stay in the basement with appropriate technology.
Sheeze (Score:2)
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Old idea (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, if they just create the face-stab [bash.org] model...
Lower part? (Score:1)
Next up? (Score:1)
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nerdness (Score:2)
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@JWSmythe kicks lonelynerd +b
Branding opportunity? (Score:2, Insightful)
Somehow I envision a bunch of smiling tweenage Japanese schoolgirls in an Internet cafe each wearing one of these emblazoned with a Hello Kitty logo staring at the avatar of their boyfriend who is sitting at a nearby computer in the very same cafe.
A must have with this vest (Score:1)
Bad Summary (Score:2)
It was actually mentioned in my human-computer interactions class.
The idea is that a long-distance couple wears these vests and one of the couple can trigger the other couple's vest to simulate a hug.
So it's a way for long-distance couples to deal with being away from each other for a while.
A little silly, but a cute idea.
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Was Asimov right? (Score:2)
TFA is trying to make the reader think along the lines of the device promoting greater interactivity while online; but I immediately thought of the first wave of humans in Asimov's universe - the ones who lived in complete isolation from each other (with robots as their sole companions), and who experienced dreadful anxiety and thoughts of revulsion when faced with meeting another human in person.
I don't really like that universe... I'm not sure we should be making it easier for people to avoid interacting
Big Bang Theory (Score:1)
Good News! (Score:2)
Old, but good (Score:2)
Puppy similarity (Score:1)
Not sure what this means but I'm sure it's related.
No excuse for the Dr Seuss hidden reference, btw.
Sad (Score:2)
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Seriously, I used to be, but I'm better now. People isolating themselves isn't healthy!
Not better than the standard solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Looking back at lonelier episodes in my life and looking at the lonely episodes, sometimes decades, of others I notice the habit of notably more frequent hot bathing during those times. I've come to find that a warm bath is a suprisingly good substitute for the physical and emotional warmth of a sustained intimate embrace. (Gee, I can't believe how technical that sentence sounds ...)
I'm quite sure that many people subconsciously chose a warm bath as a substitute without really being aware of it. I don't think this vest can beat that. Or a mammal pet, for that matter - the more obvious choice of human substitute for the socially handicapped.
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Looking back at lonelier episodes in my life and looking at the lonely episodes,
... we can definitely see that the lonelier episodes were definitely lonelier than the lonely episodes, which were only lonely. Sometimes millenia.
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I've come to find that a warm bath is a suprisingly good substitute for the physical and emotional warmth of a sustained intimate embrace.
That's because warm baths remind you (unconsciously) of the good old times in momma's womb.
just leave it to the japaneese (Score:3, Funny)
just leave it to the japanesee to build electronics which are little strange and pointless