SMS, One More Time, With Feeling...
from the my-jacket-won't-stop-hugging-me dept
Not quite sure what to make of this one, but the Register is claiming that BT's research group has come up with toys that can be sent SMS messages, so they'll respond with "feelings". Specific SMS messages will cause the toys to act in different ways. As an example, a toy dog might wag its tail if sent an SMS with a smiley face in it. They also suggest this plan can be expanded to clothing, so that a person can (literally) wear their emotions on their sleeve. They even suggest (not sure if this is the Register or BT) that you could "send a hug" by text messaging the jacket someone is wearing, and having the jacket constrict and get warm, so the wearer feels like he or she is getting a hug. This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. I can just picture the news article about someone being "strangled" by an overly amorous text message receiving jacket. Ah, when technology attacks...
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Breaking News
Date line: New York City
In what is being called the first death by SMS messaging, an overly amorous SMS user accidentally killed her long time boyfriend and fellow geek via a lengthy and accidental SMS message sent directly to his wireless-enabled sense-o-feel jacket.
The distraught woman was quoted as saying "I was trying to send him a hug when Mr. Whiskers, that's our cat btw, jumped up on the keyboard and filled the message que with a large amount of garbage text and then stepped on the Enter key".
Doctors theorize that the beta firmware in the sense-o-feel jacket mistakenly translated the series of garbage characters as a rapid fire series of hugs which caused the jacket to restrict and contract rapidly leading to cardiac erythmia which when combined with the high levels of Jolt! brand cola already in his system proved to be fatal.
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