For example, Angel Hugs is a nonprofit group that knits and crochets blankets for children and adults experiencing life-threatening diseases. HUGS International was founded to promote a non-diet model for healthy living. Hugs for Puppies is a grassroots animal rights group based in the Philadelphia area. And now you can give and receive the hugs you need without leaving home with the Hug Shirt.
The Hug Shirt is the only piece of clothing through which you can exchange the physical sensation of a hug with a loved one over distance. Embedded within each Hug Shirt are sensors that respond to the strength of touch, skin warmth, and heart rate of the sender; actuators in the receiving Hug Shirt recreate those sensations for the person on the other end.
The Hug Shirt is a Bluetooth accessory for Java-enabled mobile phones that are running the "Hug Me" software. When you wear your Hug shirt, you have no assigned telephone number. Your "hug data" travels wirelessly from the shirt's sensors to your phone; then the phone transmits the "hug data" stream through the recipient's phone and into the receiving Hug Shirt. It works on any bandwidth and runs on rechargeable batteries.
Cleanliness is next to godliness. Even though you wouldn't do this to your cell phone, you can actually wash your Hug Shirt. The circles on the Hug Shirt are more than just a retro design from the '60s. Placed under each circle are tiny "technology sandwiches," which house the sensors and actuators. You can remove these to wash your Hug Shirt and then put them back in. For the health-conscious hugger, the Hug Shirt is lead-free and non-toxic. They also come in a rainbow of colors so that you can move the "techno sandwiches" from shirt to shirt, depending on your mood.
It takes the same amount of time to send a hug as it does to place a call or send a text message. So next time when you are falling asleep in class or sitting through some boring deposition, take a minute and send a quick squeeze on the shoulders or a long loving embrace to your mom, grandmother, or significant other. And if for some reason you are not in the mood for a hug in return, you can always turn off your Hug Shirt. But then again, why would you?
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