Japanese Researchers Make Phone With Human-Like Skin; PDA On Your PDA Inevitable

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If hearing the voice of your significant other on your cellular phone wasn’t enough (or other more provocative text-messaging and camera phone-related activities that shall not be mentioned here), Japanese researchers from the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) want you to feel even closer to the person you’re talking with on the other end.
They’ve developed a new prototype phone with a more human touch–literally. Lauded as a “revolutionary telecom medium”, according to the press release from the ATR, this new phone is shaped like a miniature human with an outer layer that feels like human skin. The androgynous doll-like phone has a speaker installed in the head and a status LED on the chest. All of this is so your mobile phone will feel more like the person with whom you’re talking.
The device is a unique and uncanny way of using mobile technology to curtail the real emotional pains that often arise when two loved ones are separated by distance and can only communicate via phone. However, if you plan on purchasing this device when it releases, please spare us the awkwardness and refrain from making out with your phone in public.
Article from Yahoo! News/AFP: Japan develops mobile phone with human touch