+ - Microsoft Patents Virtual Handshakes, Hugs 2
Submitted
by
theodp
theodp writes "'It can be tough to stay connected over long distances, writes GeekWire's Todd Bishop. 'Yes, there’s phone calls, texting, Facebook, Twitter, IM, video chatting and everything else. But what if you could give virtual hugs to each other using battery-powered, Internet-enabled pillows?' That — and more — is covered by Microsoft's newly-awarded patent on Force-Feedback Within Telepresence , the idea of using interactive, connected devices to bring physical interactions to long-distance communications. Readers of Ted Nelson's 1975 Computer Lib/Dream Machines can only imagine the interesting possibilities for Skype!"
Non-obvious? (Score:2)
Very old (Score:2)
It's even got a technical term: teledildonics [wikipedia.org]. It coined in 1975 by Ted Nelson - a thought leader in social aspects of networking who also invented such terms as "hypertext" and "hypermedia". The Microsoft patent is probably some PG rated evolution of this well-worn path. Teledildonics includes all forms of touch-sense interaction over distance by technical means, both uni- and bi-directional, including any human sensory surface sensitive to touch.
As such, the Microsoft innovation is probably limiting t