Gettin' old school with the Hug

You've got to hand it to the Carnegie Mellon team behind the Hug (and its big brother, the SenseChair), a device unequivocably fixated on using vibrations, heat, light, and sound to ease the lonely pangs of elderly life. We've never heard of a device that vibrates and lights up being used to "mimic human interaction", but apparently when the Hug is,
um, used while on the phone, talking to the fam becomes a much more emotionally gratifying experience. And thus the rift between the elderly and the youthful becomes increasingly more tragic and disturbing. "Grandma no, old people smell gross! Why don't you go hug a robot instead?"