Poking your friends on Facebook can be a quick and fun way to grab their attention, and if you wish that you could actually poke someone in real life through the Facebook Poke feature, you’re in luck thanks to the poking machine, a device that has been designed to provide haptic feedback to the wearer whenever he/she has been poked on Facebook.

Developed by Jasper van Loenen and Bartholomäus Traubeck, the poking machine is basically a box that the wearer straps to their arm that pairs with your Android device via Bluetooth and the Facebook app. Not exactly the most conspicuous of contraptions, its
creators explain why they have decided to make the device.

“Online social networks are platforms for communication, enabling us to connect anywhere we go. However, they still lack the mediation of physical communication. Facebook tries to improve this by enabling its users to ‘poke’ each other, which basically only sends another written message to the person you poke, without conveying the original intent of the poking gesture. The Poking machine converts the message into an actual physical poke, extending the reach of this haptic gesture indefinitely. This way users can connect not only virtually but also physically.”

Unfortunately there are no plans to start mass producing them for sale, but you can check out the video above for more information on how the device was put together.

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