While we may need to wait for the technology allowing the tactile communication just by wearing special clothes (and I don't mean the legendary Urban Porcupine jackets!), some of the areas where it could already work today include:

* beds/mattraces
* laptops

Beds could have the following feature: as your friend lies down on her bed, your bed would try to acquire the same shape as the remote one. As you lie down too, the surface would sink even deeper, so as to reflect the product of the forces of both of your weights. This product would, of course, change, as you change positions while sleeping at night, allowing for some interesting perceptions, and perhaps even patterns of switching sides over night.

On laptops, there are places where we put the base of the palm. These places are almost always rest on the keyboards as we type. Instead of plain computer surface we could have an arrangement of pins like in pin art.
-- Inyuki, Sep 28 2012

Urban Porcupine jacket Urban_20Porcupine_20jacket
[Inyuki, Sep 28 2012]

Pin Art http://upload.wikim...n_art%2C_Flickr.jpg
[Inyuki, Sep 28 2012]

Electromagnet Mattress Electromagnet_20Mattress
This should use electomagnet mattresses [hippo, Sep 28 2012]

[10-06] Slashdot.org http://slashdot.org...0/06/150259_1.shtml
"a jacket that hugs the wearer when one of their friends 'likes' one of their posts on Facebook." [Inyuki, Oct 06 2012]

http://techcrunch.c...now-they-are-liked/ A jacket that inflates when someone "Likes" you [theircompetitor, Oct 08 2012]

This would make one-to-many tactile sign language communication possible for people who are deaf-blind.
-- JesusHChrist, Sep 28 2012


...but then you awake alone in the middle of the night you suddenly realize that nothing really mattress.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 28 2012


These already exist in a primitive form: people put them in their shoes to receive information from a remote computer running a predictive algorithm used to cheat at roulette. Expand the technology into a two-way wireless communication device and there you have it, tactile social networking.
-- Alterother, Sep 28 2012


What if the tactile communication I wish to make is an abrupt punch in the junk? Could I use the bed for that? Or maybe the laptop if it were really in the lap?
-- bungston, Sep 28 2012


//we're getting close to a BR reduction treaty//

I hate it when I have to do this;
What's BR reduction? Does it need a treaty?
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 28 2012


^ . . . something to do with pubic hair ?
-- FlyingToaster, Sep 28 2012


People usually sleep on the back or on the side.
-- Inyuki, Sep 29 2012



random, halfbakery