Japan’s innovative kissing machine

It's sort of gross, but hey. Whatever makes you happy.

Tokyo's Kajimoto Laboratory is working on a "kiss transmission device" that, when you hook it up to the internet, facilitates a lip-locking experience with someone remotely.

How?

Well. It involves a device that looks a bit like a breathalyzer — a plastic box with a movable straw attached.

By twirling the plastic straw around with your tongue, you move another plastic straw, which is connected to another little plastic box with a straw that is ideally in someone else's mouth. Hopefully someone you like.

The device is still under development, but ideally the computer would be able to read and store your "kissing information," then play it back on any given long and lonely night.

It's being billed as a device to lessen the "love miles" between long distance lovers, but Nobuhiro Takahashi, a graduate student and researcher at the University of Electro-Communications, dangles another titillating possibility.

"If you have a popular entertainer use this device and record it, that could be hugely popular if you offer it to fans," Takahashi says.

In this video, Takahashi gives the device a trial run.

It's just the beginning of what could become a full-on person-to-person experience over the internet, according to CNN.

Though Reuters points out that "They still need to work on taste, breathing, and the moistness factor."

For which we will wait. With bated breath.