Dokimakura:Hugging pillow with realistic haptic feedback

-Wed, Apr 27, 2016-

Example image

“Dokimakura” is the hugging pillow with realistic heartbeat haptic feedback through “soinet”:heartbeat SNS platform. This project is awarded the best prize in the hackathon “HackU” by Yahoo! Japan inc.

Dokimakura is designed to show augmentation of ‘presence’, feeling of “someone’s there”, of especially beloved one. Loneliness is a major problem of modern stressful city. We thought that act of hug, feeling of warmth and life can reduce the feeling of loneliness.

Hugging pillow is a metaphor of physical presence, and we tried to connect it to the social network. User voice obtained from demonstration:“Feeling of hugging some animal” “Realistic haptic feedback felt as if actually hearing someone’s heartbeat” showed that the system does presence augmentation.

Award