Cat Immersion Project Creates Crowdsourced Kitty Cocoon

Here's something Google's Glass can't do: create a virtual tent of cats for those times when you can't be around your favorite furball. The Cat Immersion Project is the bizarre and brilliant DIY handiwork of the staff at the Seattle Children's Hospital, projecting photos of more than 3,000 cats into a tented space – complete with purring sound effects – so that 16-year-old cancer patient Maga Barzallo Sockemtickem could get her dose of felines despite being in protective isolation.

Sockemtickem was forced spend more than seven months in hospital in 2011, and then spent a further month more recently in post-transplant recovery. During all that time she was unable to see her own cat, Merry, because of the risk of damage to her immune system.

In response, staff at the Children's hospital put out a call on Facebook for messages of support and photos of cats, and received a huge number of responses in return. With the help of some sheets, speakers and projectors, the "virtual cat cocoon" was born.

Technically straightforward, then, but with a huge potential to change someone's day through the awesome power of cats. We'll be petitioning Google for the inclusion of a virtual cat plugin for Project Glass.

[via Wired]