Mobiles get all touchy feely

Those wacky scientists at MIT, the place that developed a web browser for parrots, have come up with a vibrating rubber mobile phone which they claim heralds the future of communications.

The ComTouch project, run out of the Tangible Media Lab at MIT in Massachusetts, has developed a squeezable mobile which allows people to send vibrations to the person they're talking too.

Focusing on haptic technology the research team "expects that touch as a communication medium will allow for more personal communication, and perhaps even open up remote communication to deaf or blind users".

A haptic communication device enables users to transmit thoughts, feelings and concepts to each other remotely.

The prototype phones have five tiny sensor pads which fit snuggly beneath each finger. The sensors are two-way and react to the amount of pressure applied on them. The harder one user squeezes, the more the corresponding pad on the other phone vibrates.

During testing, users apparently came up with ad hoc codes using the vibrating pads to agree with, sympathise with or interrupt the other speaker.

"Through this research, we aim to describe more accurately the language of touch-based communication. We also hope to devise a set of guidelines for designing touch-based communication devices," the research group said.