May 13, 2011

Tickling your partner with an iPhone over a distance, now a reality

by Gavril Mankoo

Well if your loved one’s a bit too far away to tickle his or her palm, and the two of you are Apple fans, having each purchased an iPhone, you can now have the phone do it for you, almost. The guys at the University of Electro-Communications research laboratory have recently come up with a tickling interface for the Apple iPhone that gives the sensation of being tickled. On placing the iPhone on you palm, a pre-loaded image of a palm appears on the iPhone screen that blends in with your own palm behind. Once connected to your partner’s phone with a similar system, scrolling your finger across your iPhone screen creates a graphic image of a finger on your counterparts screen.

And we all know how ticklish some gestures can get, without needing to touch. The developers hope to make this a lot more tactile with vibrations in future. What good could come out of it, we certainly don’t know.
[Diginfo]