At last year’s WIT Conference in Singapore, Professor Adrian David Cheok spoke of being able to send senses over the Internet – smells, hugs and touches.

Well, at WIT Japan, his students at the Mixed Reality Lab at Keio University demonstrated a prototype of a ring – called Ring U – that allows you to “touch” your loved ones while you’re apart.

Still in prototype and billed as the world’s first tele-hug ring, it is a solid white band which when squeezed, sends a signal through the Internet to your friend or partner’s ring so that he or she can feel the squeeze and they, in turn, can reciprocate by squeezing their ring. (See video below)

Professor Cheok describes it as “a new product where everyone can easily and inexpensively send touch and communication to each other remotely through the Internet”.

You can also send emoticons and change the colour of your partner’s ring to signify your mood.

It’s not quite fully there yet – apparently the product will be launched late next year – but the intent is there, to be able to “touch” someone you miss when you’re on the road.

The reaction was mixed from the people I showed it to. Dorsett’s Philip Schaetz’ face lit up when his finger was “squeezed”. Cool, he said. Travelstart’s Stephan Ekbergh wasn’t too impressed. “I’ve been away from my wife for a week, I am going to need more than a touch,” he said.

Personally, depending on the cost and how it is marketed, I think Ring-U will be a hit especially with Asian youths. I can also see this working with people who’re always on the road. Cute also works in Asia like nowhere else and this is definitely cute, cool and fun.

Look at the emoticons and stickers that are so successful with chat apps like Line, WeChat and Kakao.

At WIT Japan, Akira Morikawa, CEO of Line Corporation, said that the bulk of Line’s revenues come from games and stickers – 50% from in-app purchases across its 24 different social games and 30% from the 191 stickers that are sold in the chat app.

Line announced quarterly earnings for Q4 2012 for the first time this month – earnings climbed 92% from the last quarter to hit JPY 5.82 billion (US$58 million) – 80% of that total came from Japan.

Launched in June 2011, the Line app now has 160 million users and is growing by three million new subscribers a week. (If you haven’t used Line, think of it as What’sApp on social steroids.)

Its other revenue stream is B2B – apparently one of the biggest selling items is fried chicken vouchers. Morikawa said that schoolboys, before they head home after class, like to have their snacks and a promotion it did with Lawson sold 100,000 pieces of fried chicken.

Japan Airlines, which is making a big mobile play – it saw a 357% increase in domestic flight sales on smartphones in 2012 over 2011 – has created a JALION community with Line, and has 5.7 members, said Tomohiro Nishihata, vice president, web sales & marketing.

That B2B partnership, said Morikawa, costs about 3 million yen, “very reasonable”. So travel suppliers can work with Line to increase f&b sales or to create communities such as what JAL has done.

What Line wants to do, he said, is “change the content business”.

Akira Morikawa

Asked about plans to become profitable, Morikawa said, “We don’t have a plan. We just want to grow and we will try many things out.”

His goal is clear though because he’s stated, “In the smartphone business, you can’t win unless you’re No 1 in the world in terms of membership.”

His main competitor is China’s WeChat and I keep losing track of the numbers of subscribers it claims. This report says that WeChat has grown to 195 million monthly active users – probably by the time you finish reading this, the number would be 200 million.

TechInAsia reports that the chat app has increased by about 23% since last quarter, and over 228% in a year. While WeChat’s 300 million registered accounts are predicted to breach 400 million this month, the increase in WeChat’s monthly actives suggest that WeChat and Whatsapp are quickly becoming neck and neck for this figure (Whatsapp has 200 million monthly active users).

WeChat is also WhatsApp on social steroids – this article describes it as “it’s crossed with the social features of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, mixed with Skype and a walkie-talkie—with a little dash of Grindr on top.”

Be careful though, you can get unwelcome (or welcome, depending) messages especially when you are in China. A travel executive visiting Beijing recently was pinged by a woman who asked him, “Make love?” The subject of money was raised in a subsequent message.

While I have yet to receive such messages, I’ve been propositioned a few times by men when I’ve been dining in areas in Singapore such as Joo Chiat (known for its Vietnamese karaoke bars) and Geylang (known for, well you know what, and food – best food in Singapore actually).

Now what would be really interesting is if WeChat or Line crossed with Ring-U …