Hugvie - The Huggable Communication Medium

What’s shaped like your friend and even sounds like your friend, but isn’t actually your friend? Why, a human-shaped pillow with a slot in its head for a cellphone, of course.

One Japanese venture is looking to solve that problem of feeling distant when speaking on the telephone by offering cushions that look a little like small people, with a skin-like texture, that can hold your mobile device.

The “Hugvie”, which has a head, a torso and short limbs – think Casper the Friendly Ghost, but without any facial features – is the result of a collaboration between robot engineers, a futon vendor and a textile firm.

Hugvie, is a "hug pillow" type of communication media for talking in a hugging state.

Users put their phone inside the Hugvie when making call, and then embrace it, in what one researcher dubbed “cushion-style communication media”.

Engineers at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) said they worked on the principle that people feel closer to whomever they are speaking when two or more senses are engaged, such as hearing and touch.

“Hugvie is a simple device that uses voice and tactile senses. It creates a strong sense that the user is hugging the other person, a feeling that cannot be attained via mobile phones,” ATR and its collaborators Kyoto Nishikawa and industrial materials maker Toyobo said.

And it actually is rooted in science: research has shown that physical contact with a simple, inanimate object decreased levels of cortisol, the hormone associated with stress.

The Hugvie – a portmanteau of “hug” and the French word for “life” – measures 80cm by 55cm (31in by 21in), and will sell for 10,000 yen (RM298) in Japan when it goes on sale in September.

Source: The Star Online

MORE INFO:

Its body is mainly a cushion that is formed similar to Telenoid and Elfoid to effectively convey a sense of human existence. While holding it close to body, users speak to people in far locations through their cellphones inserted into a pocket in its head.

Moreover, it is equipped with a vibrator inside that generates vibration for reproduction of heartbeats that can effectively convey the human likeness and human emotions.

These heartbeat vibrations that vary in synchronization with the partner's tone, strengthen the presence feeling originated by voice.

(For example, when the vibrations of heartbeat change in line with voice volume of the talk partner, the increase in that person's feelings are transferred by voice and vibration, and therefore users feel their partners closer to themselves)

The comfortable feeling of cushion, the sense of hugging one's partner, the partner's voice heard from somewhere close to ear, and the reproduced vibration that conveys heartbeats in alignment with that voice, all help to sense an active presence of the partner and intensify the affinity toward him/her.

Although the transfer of information is merely through voice and vibration, it is an innovative communication medium that embodies the minimum required elements for transmitting a humanlike presence.

Hugvie is a practical presence-transfer media that allows anyone who has an ordinary cellphone to simply talk to a partner while feeling his or her presence.

It is most effective for the interaction between people with close relationships such as parents and kids, grandparents and grandchildren, couples, lovers, friends and etc.

It is expected to have an increase in the sense of intimacy during the interaction through Hugvie. Also we expect that Hugvie increases the communication motives and chances for those who experience lack of opportunities for human communication.

In future, we will continue our development research regarding the effective vibrations that can transfer the feeling of presence.

In addition, we plan to use tactile sensors to measure the state of speaker in order to develop a media that can convey the presence feeling by vibration even in the absence of speech and therefore achieve the ultimate form of presence transfer.

Hugvie's main features are as below:

• Easy to use for everyone, effective media at a low price
• Simple design for hugging and talking that effectively conveys sense of human presence
• New phone-call style that gives the feeling of holding the talk partner
• Cushion design for comfortably hugging the body
• Vibrations for reproduction of heartbeats that enables users to strongly feel the presence of partner

Hardware specifications:

• Size: 75 cm
• Weight: 600 g (without the vibrator)
• External material: stretch fabric (possible to clean the outer part only)
• Internal material: micro foam beads

Source: Geminiod