French researcher makes wriggling robot finger

(FOX 13) - A French researcher has invented a new gadget for smartphones and it's giving us the creeps.

The Mobilimb is a robotic finger that attaches to your mobile phone, which seems creepy, but it could one day help people without fingers navigate a mobile device.

And it looks very much like a real finger.

Video provided by its creator shows the robotic finger dragging a mobile phone across a surface, so if you’re too lazy to walk across the room, the finger will deliver.

The Mobilimb can draw and act as a torch. It can also stroke your hand and bring touch in human-computer interfaces, among many other tasks.

The product is a work of researcher Marc Teyssier and his colleagues from Paris-Saclay University and Sorbonne University in France.

Teyssier says he hopes his invention will be a step towards a day when people can interact with objects the way you do with other people or pets.

“My Ph.D. topic is around touch for communication. So when we talk with people in real life we touch each other to communicate emotions, for example, a stroke on the arm or stuff like that but for mobile devices and interaction in general in computers, we don't use touch at all,” Teyssier said.