A design researcher at the Berlin University of the Arts, Germany, has worked out a a way to get a snog out of his phone. Fabian Hemmert, has developed a series of phone prototypes that can transmit grasping, breathing or even kissing.
Showing off his phone at the Mobile HCIconference in Stockholm, Sweden, Hemmert demonstated force sensors on the phone's sides and a strap which the user places over their hand. When a person grips their phone it sends a signal to a motor in the other phone that pulls the strap tighter. Breathing transmits air movement, with a pressure sensor on one side and a jet on the other.
The Kissing prototype gas moisture sensor on the sender's phone and a motorised wet sponge that pushes against a semi-permeable membrane on the receiver's phone. The extent to which the sponge moves depends on the wetness of the sender's kiss, letting you distinguish between a peck on the cheek and a full-on slobber. The description is similar to the kiss I got when I was 15 from a very strange girl who held me down so I could not escape.
Needless to say Hemmert's colleagues think the new means of communication "creepy", "awkward", "disturbing" and "disgusting" but hell, they were German students so it probably was a good night out for them.
A kiss is just a kiss
Nick Farell
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