[JohnDenver]

Off-topic, but interesting:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')esearchers have developed a cybernetic system to allow physical interaction over the internet. The system allows touching and feeling of animals or other humans in real time, but it's first being tried out on -- chickens.
Built by a wacky group of researchers at the Mixed Reality Lab at the National University of Singapore, the Touchy Internet works as follows:

You walk into your office, where a hollow, chicken-shaped doll sits on a mechanical positioning table close to your computer.
The doll whirs to life as soon as you switch on the system, duplicating the motion of a real chicken in the backyard whose movements are being captured by a webcam.
Fondling the doll translates into touching the real fowl.
Touch sensors attached to the doll convey tactile information to a nearby PC through radio signals. The data is sent over the internet to a remote computer near the chicken; the remote computer triggers tiny vibration motors in a lightweight haptic jacket worn by the fowl.
The chicken feels your touch in the exact same place where the replica was stroked.
"This is the first human-poultry interaction system ever developed," said professor Adrian David Cheok, the leader of the team, who has been developing the technology for nearly two years.

[lee]

they'll invent tele-life. You don't actually live,
you just phone it in.