This terrifying creature is the Elfoid, or Erufoido, a creepy, blob-shaped cellphone which I would never even touch, much less hold up close to my ear.
Astonishingly, the Elfoid is meant to make people less scared of their phones, not more. It simplifies complex technology by using hidden buttons and voice-recognition to control it, but that?s just the beginning of the weirdness.
The Elfoid will somehow communicate the ?presence? of the person on the line using sound and cameras, and the doughy urethane cover mimics the feel of human skin. This will, researchers at Osaka University hope, make people feel closer to each other.
What these researchers seem to have missed is the sheer creepiness of the doll. Take a look: its legs fuse into one tapered, amorphous limb, akin to the root of the much-feared Mandrake, and the arms disappear into pointed stumps that not even a mother could want to hug. If this thing were pressed to my cheek and then started to vibrate and hum, I think I?d just panic and run. And that?s before we even get to waking up in the middle of the night to find this demonic and deformed homunculus staring at you from your night-stand. Lord, it probably even has glowing red LEDs where its eyes should be.
There?s only one good use for this kind of doll, one which is surprisingly similar to its intended purpose of conveying emotional opinions from afar. It should be treated like the Voodoo doll that it obviously is, and stuck with pins from head to stump. It?s our only hope.
Creepy doll press release [ATR Osake University via Asahi]
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