I am all for technology advancements, but must admit to being slightly worried about the increasingly blurry lines between the real and virtually-real. Yesterday, we brought you news of a Wii-enabled virtual massage system which lets you choose a virtual girlfriend and massage her. This came hot on the heels of Love Plus, a dating sim for handheld Nintendo DS consoles and AR applications on iPhones. Now the National University of Simgapore has just announced the release of Kiss ME, a wireless digital communications media that can deliver a tele-kiss – a remote, mediated kiss delivered in real-time – using integrated mobile communication devices. The Kiss ME project is being led by Adrian David Cheok, Director of the Mixed Reality Lab at the National University of Singapore, who wants to develop a system that provides the convincing properties of a real kiss. Using an artificial mouth, including a pair of life-like lips, Kiss ME claims it can provide the “convincing properties of the real kiss including pressure and temperature”. It sounds kind of freaky to me.

Best of luck with your project, Adrian, but we all know that nothing beats a real smooch from a live human being.
[Gizmodiva]