Prepare for Public Displays of Mobile Affection

PDA as in Public Display of Affection with your smartphone. Nicole, in your previous blog from an archaic times ago (in internet age), you disclosed the lack of liking for PDAs. I'm just sayin'. :)

^^ okay, so I commented before finishing the vblog..

The field of haptics is a pretty interesting one... and with any new technology, you just know that some of the most popular (but perhaps less talked about) applications will be... p0rn.

The Greeks always have a word for it, don't they?  Haptic, from "hapto" - I touch.  I have now added that to my vocabulary and will be using it in future blogs.  I am also excited to have discovered haptic poetry (poetry combined with scupture, not poets laying hands on their auditors).

Getting personal with your technology is an old subject. I think it was in the first issue of WIRED Magazine that I first read the story of how computing devices would enable 'conjugal visits' between couples separated by travel schedules. 

Of course it went on from there... 

I agree with you regarding haptics and healthcare. Lots of merit there.

I also don't believe that the solution to the problem of people hiding behind phones and computers to communicate is to simulate affection with technology... and I hope technologies like this don't develop beyond the prototype stage!

Well there's plenty of merit in developing these *kinds* of technologies -- they're generally categorized as haptics. Haptics research can bring us all sorts of useful user interface functions. And being able to send a "touch" over the internet could enable things like better remote medical help. Doctors might be able to receive information about how hard a patient's grip is -- during a remote diagnosis over a video chat session. There are plenty of practical applications if haptic technology can be made cheaply enough so that people start using it more widely.

But blowing a virtual kiss over a wireless connection? uh, yah, that's probably not going to replace the real thing any time soon. :P

Me too. Were this about to be released I think I'd be pretty alarmed. But the designer did say that these prototypes are meant to spark a debate. Based on what I'm reading on this board, there's hardly a debate to be had -- no one seems quite interested in this, to say the least. But just for argument's sake, I'd love to know if anyone can find any merit in an idea like this, or something similar. Thoughts?

I'm just glad these technologies are only getting to first base... and not rounding third.

I suppose this is an inevitable outcome of people spending (as far as I can see) more time interacting with virtual people than real people.  When else are you going to get your intimacy?

Oh I'm more than certain that type of technology is on its way, Chris. Aren't people already working on taste/smell sensors so we can taste/smell things over our computers and phones? I think these sort of "advancements" make me especially angry because there are so many other ways technologists should be spending their time, there are so many other issues to attend to, and yet we're trying to sniff and breathe on each other over the phone. Gross.