Debuting at the first Augmented Human International Conference was a new wearable device called the iFeel_IM, a robot intended to add physical feelings to the Second Life experience.
Developed by a husband-and-wife team from Japan, the aim of the device is to increase the emotional level of online experiences by triggering feelings using the iFeel_IM’s core component, the Affect Analysis Model. This model automatically senses nine emotions in text and, according to a book chapter from “Human Interface and the Management of Information. Designing Information Environments,” uses haptic devices (called HaptiHeart, HaptiHug, HaptiTickler, HaptiCooler, and HaptiWarmer) to create a more immersive, and hopefully more life-like, sensation to using Second Life and possibly other online functions like instant messaging.
“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,” said Dzmitry Tsetserukou, an assistant professor at Toyohashi University of Technology in Japan, in an interview with AFP.
Sensors, small motors, vibrators and speakers are connected to a person and then connected to a computer. The device can then simulate a heart beating, a hug, and a tingling feeling along the spine. It can also apparently generate warmth.
While not perfect, the software that pulls out the emotion from the text, designed by Tsetserukou’s wife, Alena Neviarouskaya, works 90% of the time. The AFP reports that in the case study presented at the conference, “The words “I am happy to see you” triggers a warm sensation in the person spoken to, and as the avatars hug in their virtual world, the act is mirrored in reality by a squeezing sensation around the waist.”
No word yet on the cost of the suit, or whether it will be made commercially available. But here’s the YouTube proof:
hhhehehee…I shouldn’t laugh but it’s very Wallace and Gromit…. sort of mad professor type thing.
While I could imagine that one day I might wear a visor or even a helmet, strapping three belts around me before i log on…hmmm…I think not.
[...] Debuting at the first Augmented Human International Conference was a new wearable device called the … [...]
As much as I’m an anxious advocate of cyborgian innovations, the “iFeel_IM” is giving me a bad vibe that I can’t shake off..
And that’s where this invention is problematic to me. What I understand is that the keywords/phrases/emoticons(?) that “trigger” these tingles and tickles are programmed into the iFeel_IM in order to determine when you get a chill down your spine or feel the warm embrace of a Haptihug. Is it just me, or does this reek of Foucauldian notions of a discourse disciplining the body? Wouldn’t you literally putting your body into a system of language that reinforces its concepts of “emotion” sensory responses onto your physical body? And for the iFeeling body to function within the “works 90% of the time” threshold, wouldn’t you find yourself rephrasing your words, remolding your language, in order to target the “right” Hapti-triggers? In the long run, wouldn’t it have the potential (danger) of changing how we sit/stand/lay, discipline our bodies in front of a screen to make sure they are in optimal position to receive these emotions that bring life to your communication?
Will the iFeel_IM trigger raised eyebrows when it fails to detect sarcasm, puns, or non-mutual conversations (which reminds me of a chapter by Sherry Turkle about cyber-rape in lambdaMOO)?
I’ll be in line when attempts like this are available to curious public consumers, but I would hate to see what (more) would happen in our cyber age when the innovations keep outweighing the critical awareness of how they affect us as (post)humans.
Thanks for the brainfood
Keep these contraptions far, far away from me. They are manipulative and controlling and typical of the power-hungry geeky Singularist stuff that coagulates around Second Life.
I don’t need to have a haptic…thing….reach out and touch me in order to feel an emotion, which in real life doesn’t require anything physically manipulating me.
I also want to have a range of emotions larger and more nuanced than the 8 emotions that these geek mad scientists will cook up from me.
/runs away screaming
I cringe when I read about efforts like this… don’t the developers of all this machinery feel emotions in the normal way? Don’t they already get a warm feeling when someone they like logs in?
These devices really feed the totally false but rather prevalent idea that interaction in virtual worlds is somehow a simulation of feelings best suited to those who cannot behave or feel normally in real life. Of course this is rubbish…
The idea of strapping a device to yourself so you can feel what most of us do already with infinite variations of subtlety is scary.