And if your next pet was a dragon that exists in the physical world and in the digital world at the same time, you hug a soft stuffed animal and in the glasses it comes to life, looks back at you, reacts to affection, changes mood, that is the proposal of Luceal, a prototype created by students at Carnegie Mellon University, a companion that brings the concept of tamagochi to the 21st century, uniting real touch, virtual presence and convincing expressiveness.

The Body is a stuffed animal instrumented with intextels, fabrics, threads and conductive fibers cooked as soft circuits that capture pressure and gestures in specific areas of the toy, these signals travel to the headset tested with the laboratory's Apple Vision Pro, where a re-rendering pipeline superimposes the animated avatar on the physical object with spatial alignment, correct scale and eye contact that makes the magic seem real.

Instead of complex motors, the tactile sensation comes from the stuffed animal itself, life comes from the virtual side with layers of animation and states that modulate posture, gaze, breathing and micro expressions, the result is a creature that seems to inhabit the stuffed animal without tricks, without visible cables, with a latency low enough to keep the illusion intact.

In practice, the stuffed animal works as an invisible control, you press the head, the avatar tilts yours, blinks, emits a curious trill, prolonged caress on the back, breathing slows, the tail relaxes, the mood rises, the touch zones are mapped in space by the headset, which also records your position and viewing angle to ensure that what you see matches exactly what you feel in your hands.

By changing skins, the same physical body can become a seal, dragon or any stylized creature, the tactile presence remains, the personality changes, think about a combination of internal states: calm, playful, sleepy, regulated transitions and parametric animations that adapt to what you do, when you do it and for how long you do it.

It's not about pre-programmed phrases, it's about sensitive interactivity, the plan is to expand this brain with adaptive flames, recording preferences, schedules, routines and creating a history of coexistence that seems really yours. Yes, friends, the future really seems to have arrived, but I still prefer real dogs. And do you prefer the virtual or the real?