Punggol North Racial & Religious Harmony Street Parade and Carnival 2010

On July 18th the Mixed Reality Lab participated in the Punggol North Racial & Religious Harmony Street Parade and Carnival 2010.  The MXR booth was visited by the guest of honor Mr Teo Chee Hean, Duputy Prime Minister of Singapore.  The Lab presented Confucius Computer and Huggy Pajama with about 150 people using the systems.  The confucius system uses new media to revive and model these historical philosophies and teachings, presenting them in new contexts, such as online social chat, music and food. This enables people to experience and explore the ancient culture using the literacy of digital interactivity.  Huggy Pajama is a novel wearable system aimed at promoting physical interaction in remote communication between parent and child. This system enables parent and child to hug one another through a novel hugging interface device and a wearable, hug reproducing jacket connected through the Internet. The hugging device is a small, mobile doll with embedded pressure sensing circuit that is able to sense varying levels of human force. This device sends hug signals to a haptic jacket that simulates the feeling of being hugged to the wearer.