Skip to main content

Long-distance love made easier with Kissenger, the virtual kissing gadget

Long-distance relationships are hard. Even though smartphones and the internet help bring us closer, physical contact can make all the difference.

A new device called Kissenger hopes to bridge the gap separating long-distance loved ones. Developed by researchers in Adrian David Cheok’s Imagineering Lab and Imagineering Institute in Iskandar, Malaysia, Kissenger simulates a kiss using pressure sensors and actuators, while users are video chatting through an iOS application.

Recommended Videos

“The Kissenger device was built for people to better express intimacy and emotion remotely through internet kissing,” Emma Yann Zhang, a PhD student at City University London, told Digital Trends. “It aims to fill in the missing dimension of touch in traditional digital communication, which largely focuses on verbal and audio information. We believe that physical touch is the most important channel to communicate one’s emotions and to maintain close relationships with your loved ones on the other side of the world.”

Kissenger isn’t the first of such devices to emerge from the Imagineering Lab. Cheok’s past projects have included the Huggy Pajama and RingU, both of which digitally transmit the sensation of touch from one wearer to another.

To be sure, these devices aren’t exclusively designed for couples. Zhang insists families could benefit from the added affection as well. And it apparently isn’t limited to human-human interaction, either.

The researchers demonstrated Kissenger last month at the Love and Sex With Robots conference in London, where experts and enthusiasts discussed the growing implications of sexualized androids. In that vein, the Imagineering Lab is also planning to integrate the device into a kissing humanoid robot with interactive lips. “With new types of technologies and interfaces that enable physical intimacy between humans and robots,” Zhang said, addressing a subject that remains controversial, “I believe that we can form more humanistic and intimate relationships with robots.”

For now the researchers are looking for commercial partners and investors to bring Kissenger to market so you too can soon smooch your long distance partner.

Dyllan Furness
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Dyllan Furness is a freelance writer from Florida. He covers strange science and emerging tech for Digital Trends, focusing…
Google Gemini’s best AI tricks finally land on Microsoft Copilot
Copilot app for Mac

Microsoft’s Copilot had a rather splashy AI upgrade fest at the company’s recent event. Microsoft made a total of nine product announcements, which include the agentic trick called Actions, Memory, Vision, Pages, Shopping, and Copilot Search. 

A healthy few have already appeared on rival AI products such as Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, alongside much smaller players like Perplexity and browser-maker Opera. However, two products that have found some vocal fan-following with Gemini and ChatGPT have finally landed on the Copilot platform. 

Read more
Rivian set to unlock unmapped roads for Gen2 vehicles
rivian unmapped roads gen2 r1t gallery image 0

Rivian fans rejoice! Just a few weeks ago, Rivian rolled out automated, hands-off driving for its second-gen R1 vehicles with a game-changing software update. Yet, the new feature, which is only operational on mapped highways, had left many fans craving for more.
Now the company, which prides itself on listening to - and delivering on - what its customers want, didn’t wait long to signal a ‘map-free’ upgrade will be available later this year.
“One feedback we’ve heard loud and clear is that customers love [Highway Assist] but they want to use it in more places,” James Philbin, Rivian VP of autonomy, said on the podcast RivianTrackr Hangouts. “So that’s something kind of exciting we’re working on, we’re calling it internally ‘Map Free’, that we’re targeting for later this year.”
The lag between the release of Highway Assist (HWA) and Map Free automated driving gives time for the fleet of Rivian vehicles to gather ‘unique events’. These events are used to train Rivian’s offline model in the cloud before data is distilled back to individual vehicles.
As Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe explained in early March, HWA marked the very beginning of an expanding automated-driving feature set, “going from highways to surface roads, to turn-by-turn.”
For now, HWA still requires drivers to keep their eyes on the road. The system will send alerts if you drift too long without paying attention. But stay tuned—eyes-off driving is set for 2026.
It’s also part of what Rivian calls its “Giving you your time back” philosophy, the first of three pillars supporting Rivian’s vision over the next three to five years. Philbin says that philosophy is focused on “meeting drivers where they are”, as opposed to chasing full automation in the way other automakers, such as Tesla’s robotaxi, might be doing.
“We recognize a lot of people buy Rivians to go on these adventures, to have these amazing trips. They want to drive, and we want to let them drive,” Philbin says. “But there’s a lot of other driving that’s very monotonous, very boring, like on the highway. There, giving you your time back is how we can give the best experience.”
This will also eventually lead to the third pillar of Rivian’s vision, which is delivering Level 4, or high-automation vehicles: Those will offer features such as auto park or auto valet, where you can get out of your Rivian at the office, or at the airport, and it goes off and parks itself.
While not promising anything, Philbin says he believes the current Gen 2 hardware and platforms should be able to support these upcoming features.
The second pillar for Rivian is its focus on active safety features, as the EV-maker rewrote its entire autonomous vehicle (AV) system for its Gen2 models. This focus allowed Rivian’s R1T to be the only large truck in North America to get a Top Safety Pick+ from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
“I believe there’s a lot of innovation in the active safety space, in terms of making those features more capable and preventing more accidents,” Philbin says. “Really the goal, the north star goal, would be to have Rivian be one of the safest vehicles on the road, not only for the occupants but also for other road users.”

Read more
Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan hit the brake on shipments to U.S. over tariffs
Range Rover Sport P400e

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has announced it will pause shipments of its UK-made cars to the United States this month, while it figures out how to respond to President Donald Trump's 25% tariff on imported cars.

"As we work to address the new trading terms with our business partners, we are taking some short-term actions, including a shipment pause in April, as we develop our mid- to longer-term plans," JLR said in a statement sent to various media.

Read more