Long-distance relationships are big business. Look at the 2,300-plus books on the topic flooding Amazon.com. Webcams wouldn’t be so popular if couples stopped living in different cities. It was only a matter of time before tech experts started tinkering with gadgets to shrink the distance between lovers… mentally, of course.
To keep the flames burning from afar, the Relational Pillow, a prototype from the Ambient Intelligence Group of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, could come in handy. LED lights under the pillow’s material light up in any pattern when a user touches them. Connected by WiFi, another pillow miles away suddenly illuminates in the same pattern. Group founder Patti Maes explains, “You can draw a smile on one Relational Pillow and send it to another pillow far away.”
Draw a heart to convey “I love you.” Ask simple, fun questions, à la texting. Or illustrate something naughty when e-mailing dirty talk just doesn’t cut it.
Building on the same idea, Scotland’s Distance Lab has engineered the Mutsugoto, a bedroom projection system that allows users to draw words and patterns on a bed. Essentially, partners in the beds can draw on each other’s bodies by making virtual pen strokes along the bed’s surface that are transmitted instantly to another bed, allowing those illustrations to appear on the body of the distant partner.
It sounds creepy, but no one said sex tech embraces the romantic side of relationships. Project managers see these devices as aids that keep the lines of communication strong, reaching beyond connections by cellphone and PC. Intimacy is still lacking from current Internet culture, and ideas like the Relational Pillow and Mutsugoto could satisfy couples jonesing for creative ways to stay close.
Such long-distance ideas are just beginning to take root. Ambient Devices develops presence-awareness products, and one of their back-burner projects involves a souped-up picture frame. Ambient vice-president of sales and marketing Mark Prince says a gesture to this frame would make another frame across the world light up in a similar way.
“It is a great way to facilitate dialogue,” he says, “perhaps to cue up an instant-message conversation. The frame could let the other person know you’re here, ready to talk.”
Prince believes a consumer mind-shift has to occur to generate demand for these types of products in the marketplace. “Where would this go on a shelf in Future Shop?” Prince asks, only semi-rhetorically.
He’s hit a powerful point: we aren’t ready for technology to replace physical intimacy, at least on a mass scale, just as we aren’t prepared to accept the idea of sex with robots, which some predict will be routine within 40 years.
Ignore these innovations designed to keep couples together at your peril. You never know – your partner may have to intern in New York for 10 months, leaving you pining for projection beds and futuristic pillows.
tech@nowtoronto.com
