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Professor Liu Yunhui, led by a team of researchers and engineers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, showed a robotic hand designed to incorporate the old and necessary sense of touch to online conversations. According to Mr. Liu, you may express affection over the phone or writing, but nothing can replace the warmth of a handshake, even if a device receiving it looked as dubious as the one shown in the photo.
The device, as you can see, is built using servo motors pulling cables which in turn stretch and contract the fingers made of plastic. This hand is connected to the PC and receives commands through a software, which in turn is controlled via internet by a partner who gives orders on hand.
I first thought that the hand is controlled by a sort of control console, but no: the control electrode is a bracelet that read nerve impulses that go through your wrist, the thing encodes and sends the other side hand try to imitate your movement.
Its creators say the interpretation algorithm of the pulse is still very precarious, and also the degrees of freedom of a mechanical hand can not but very crudely imitate the millions of different impulses that travel to and from a human hand. In other words, the hand can run or unexpected movements that do not correspond with what we wanted to do. With that in mind, it would be a perfectly plausible excuse to say "sorry, did not want to open your blouse, is that this crap is not working well."
The idea of replacing limbs by electronic or mechanical devices is not new. In FayerWayer we have told about the bionic fingers ProDigits, robot hands that make breast exam, bionic hands that tightened cans, and even a hand operated by compressed air. However, all these are experiments with a research and academic background, while the hand-chatter is a commercial product that its creators expect to sell for next Christmas for about $ 30. Hong Kong is that even scientists have souls exporter.
Link: Cyber hand lets net users touch
