If there’s one truth about the future, it’s that it always feels light years away—until it arrives.

A few months ago we came to you with one pressing question: are patents to blame for stalling teledildonics? The short answer seemed to be, well, yes. But that doesn’t appear to be stopping people from trying to realize a bright future for sexual technology, even if it has to be done in garages and basements rather than high tech labs.

In particular, a number of small companies and organizations are sprouting up to fill the need where patent holders have quashed development for large corporations. And they’re offering interested individuals the opportunity to try their hands at creating open-source, patent-free sex technology in the comfort of their own homes.

Ambrosia Vibe

The Ambrosia Vibe first gained media attention in June 2014, when Orgasmatronics began crowdfunding for the responsive vibrating dildo via Indiegogo. In August, the campaign ended with funding that more than doubled its initial goal. Now only three months later, the very first “bionic strap-on” is available to order.

Image Source: Orgasmatronics

But perhaps the most exciting news from the company is its decision to make the Ambrosia Vibe open source.

Inventor and Orgasmatronics CEO Doctor X. Treme explained the reasoning behind this decision on the Orgasmatronics blog:

“I have decided that I want to work in a way that I believe in.  As I was working on patents, I increasingly felt a disconnect between my work and what I believed.  I see patents hurting our industry, stifling innovation, and generally being a not fun time.  Sex should be consensual and collaborative and patents are none of these things.  The patents I see going out in this industry are for things that are most obvious and would be trivial for a competent engineer to reproduce.

Many of the best products are not patented (the rabbit, the Hitachi, the 5 dollar bullet vibe.) Open hardware works in business when the ability to grow the market size by being open outweighs the value of a monopoly.”

For the Doctor and his team, a commitment to open source sex tech means:

“1. We don’t patent the Ambrosia technology.
2. We tell hobbyists how to build their own from scratch.
3. We tell people enough about it that they can remix it in their own commercial products (and have hardware licenses that allow this).
4. We tell customers who buy our products how to take them apart and hack them, including re-programming the firmware and connecting to other hardware.”

And true to his word, in early October, the Orgasmatronics team published an article on its site detailing the technology behind the responsive dildo in a short, information-packed video.

With this information, plus the step-by-step instructions offered in the rest of the article and the right ingredients, you can cook up your very own DIY bionic strapon!

And Orgasmatronics isn’t alone in bringing DIY sex toys to the masses.

CoMingle

The now infamous do-it-yourself sex toy repository CoMingle.io was created by three Georgia Tech students “targeting innovation in interaction and stimulation.” They received a massive media response for one of their first projects, an open-source digital condom demonstrated in the video below.

While the idea bank has only been operational since August, it’s already added several more how-to articles since introducing the Electric Eel. In addition to two articles covering code basics and advanced methods for sex toy programming, the group has posted lengthy DIY instructions to help anyone with the right skills and materials to recreate the site’s programmable silicone vibrator, the Comingle Multivibe, currently in beta testing.

And from the looks of things, these guys are just getting started. Their Multivibe has won several awards already and they just announced a crowdfunding campaign to get the Mod platform into production, allowing users to connect any number of sensors as input devices to control the vibe. Once this toy is out of beta and into the hands of happy consumers, who knows what will be next for the innovative young startup.

Oculus Rift

While it certainly isn’t dedicated sex technology, the Oculus Rift virtual reality (VR) headset has joined the ranks of open source sex tech with the release of the DK1 developer kit. When Oculus acquired the C++ game networking engine Raknet in July, Oculus VR immediately made the platform open source for the indie development community.

That this kind of virtual reality technology will inevitably be used for sexual stimulation is unquestionable. Few producers currently have the technology necessary to create realistic immersive VR entertainment, let alone the kind of tech that would allow people to shoot their own VR adult entertainment at home. But that hasn’t stopped them from trying!

Sugar DVD announced that it would have titles available this summer, but they are currently still in production. One Spanish company [NSFW] has about 25 short 10-minute clips in its library for a variety of VR devices. Another company, VRSmash, currently has 32 options to choose from, including both video and still models.

A quick Google search will reveal that dozens of companies are advertising a variety of XXX virtual reality games and interactive videos—the best of which are most likely to be animated and purposefully non-realistic renditions of sexualized bodies, primarily coming from the Japanese market.

All of this technology has one thing in common: small, smart, tech-savvy startups that don’t want to be mired down by patents and procedures. It seems clear that future-driven creators don’t want to be caught up in legal battles, that real innovation comes when the technology can go in whatever direction suits its development without being stalled by a human need for power and control over it.

And yet, despite all these best efforts, the available technology still seems to be lagging behind our best wishes for it. Of course, if we had all the technology we’ve been dreaming about for all these years, where would we go next?

From DIY sex toys and interactive teledildonics to immersive virtual reality, the real question remains… how long will it take for the technology to catch up with the fantasy?

Image sources: Comingle.io

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A new “virtual girlfriend” augmented reality system has recently caused a bit of a stir in tech blogs.

And all this attention has spurred an excellent discussion about the potential problems with the language of the future of sex. The tech in question allows the user to project an image of Japanese pop star Hatsune Miku into their lives via a combination of video goggles and the ASUS Xtion Pro motion sensor. This video not only displays the capacity of this technology, but also some of the ways it becomes immediately problematic. Notice the way that the creator demonstrates the virtual avatar’s ability to respond to touch.

An article in Slate magazine points out the problem with the term “virtual girlfriend” – an increasingly popular technology, especially in Japan and Korea – when it is used to describe something which doesn’t have the capacity to actually respond, but merely react to stimuli in predictable, programmable patterns. The author ends by recommending an interesting solution:

Instead of calling Hatsune Miku an augmented reality “girlfriend,” let’s call her what she is: a toy. Men who download or buy her or whatever are not participating in relationships, which involve two people, but playing with toys, like Legos or Barbies. You can pummel a teddy bear, if you wish; you cannot bop a woman on the head. Unfortunately, I suspect it’s the consumer’s inability to distinguish between love and ownership that makes Hatsune and her ilk so popular.

What do you think?

Are innovators in any way socially responsible for creating technologies that don’t further perpetuate the concept of partners as property?

And can the evolution of sexuality and technology use these controversial augmented realities to help us explore the deep roots of human relationships and better understand the very nature of love?

Image Source: Animaster on Flickr

The post The Language of the Future of Sex: the “Virtual Girlfriend” appeared first on Future of Sex.

Virtual worlds, especially those with adult sexual content, can be overwhelming for new users. Ease into it here!

Who?

Users of virtual worlds vary greatly, especially depending on the world they choose to inhabit and the locations they frequent within it. Using a sex-specific world can help you to get a better idea of what other members might be seeking, but can be more expensive than a diverse world like Second Life, where adult activities are kept off the “mainland” and out of the spotlight.

Keep in mind that just as in real life, not everyone in the dating pool has the best of intentions and communication or sexual negotiation can be difficult as you are learning the in-game commands and functions. Sexualized violence towards avatars is not unheard of and can be an emotionally upsetting ordeal. Games like Second Life have clear cut anti-harassment policies which outline your avatar rights, how you can report another user and in what instances. Do no hesitate to report someone who is being abusive through avatar actions, text or audio chat. As with everything on the internet, be conscious of the information you share publicly and what information you give to others privately. Play safe!

What?

Getting started might seem like a lengthy process, but it is well worth the time and effort. The learning curve may surprise you. Don’t allow yourself to get overwhelmed too easily, or to take on too much at once. There is no need to completely redesign your avatar from scratch in your first logon. Take your time, learn how to get around and talk to people, then play around with all your options before deciding what will work best for you. Think of this as setting up a new tool to use for collaboration, learning, socializing and attending events. Virtual worlds are so much more than games…

Choose your World

Deciding where to get your start is probably the most important decision in the process. You can, of course, choose as many virtual worlds as you like, but remember that they aren’t generally cross-compatible, so you will want to start your avatar from scratch for each program you run.

The ultimate factor in deciding which world you choose will be computer requirements – be sure that your hardware can run the software before you start buying memberships to anything. Take a few minutes to try on a random avatar and run around to see how the world renders. Play with the settings a bit. Smooth, well-supported software makes for a much more pleasurable virtual experience.

The other most important aspect of your virtual world choice is your particular usage profile: what do you want to do in a virtual world?

Are you interested in making friends, chatting about shared hobbies, watching movies or going to parties? Do you want to shop? Do you have a virtual or physical-world product you want to sell? Are you interested in attending events, lectures, conferences and trade shows through a virtual portal? Are you intrigued by the virtual sexual functions and looking to explore the technical and animation capabilities of your avatar? Are you interested in exploring a kink that you might not yet feel comfortable or be able to indulge in with your physical partners? Are you a developer interested in creating devices or interfaces for controlling avatars with the body? Do you want to see just how complex an adult virtual world can be?

Pinpoint your purpose and follow that lead. Find a group you want to join, an event you want to attend, some people you want to meet, and use that as inspiration and a starting point in your new virtual life. Red Light Center is the largest adult virtual world available and a great place to get started, but you can find a review of the other major virtual sex worlds in the virtual sex directory in our Bizarre Bazaar section [NSFW].

Where?

Once you have chosen a platform, you still have an entire world to explore! Where to go first? When you feel comfortable logging in and wandering or teleporting around, head somewhere that will give you a chance to interact with a great number of different people, offer you the opportunity to chat and find someone who can help you learn as you go without pressure to perform. Try not to make this about “winning” and think of a virtual world as less of a “game” and more as a “platform” on which many different kinds of interactions can be built.

Image Source: TORLEY on Flickr

Check out  or the Red Light Center Events blog to find out what’s going on in the Utherverse.

If nothing strikes your fancy right away or the entire thing just seems too overwhelming, check out online tutorials written specifically for the platform of your choice (like Getting Started with Second Life), or to your desires and interests (like this Second Life BDSM guide). If collaboration and socialization are more your style, this slide show for getting started in virtual worlds is especially useful for those wishing to use a virtual world for conferences and educational events.

Why?

Basically, virtual sex is great because, sex is great! Here’s the scoop: exercise and other “good stress” like sex improves cognitive function. The brain, incapable of distinguishing between a body actually having sex, and a brain releasing the chemicals associated with having sex, will respond with neural growth either way. When you are able to convince your brain is that your virtual sex is “real sex” it responds accordingly!

What’s most important about the science behind these is the relationship between frequency of sexual activity and anxiety. For most people, engaging in a sexual encounter with someone new is both cognitively beneficial and anxiety inducing. Generally speaking, the benefit potential outweighs the anxiety potential even for a once-in-a-lifetime sexual experience, but an increase in frequency results in a drastic decline in anxiety levels. In other words, the more frequently you have sex, especially with new partners, the less anxious you will feel during and after sex, and the greater the cognitive benefit!

If this cognitive benefit could be accomplished through virtual worlds, without the same dangers and difficulties involved in meeting the right person, in the right place at the right time, it could be life-changing for those whose social anxiety makes regular physical contact rare or impossible. Virtual worlds offer a safer place to explore anxiety inducing behaviors with a wide audience of people, many of whom may be in search of the same thing.

How?

The possibilities at this point are virtually infinite! Pick your favorite adult virtual world, strap on a set of genitals, and enjoy! Check out the UNCP report, “Why and How to Get Started in a Virtual World” [pdf] if you still need convincing.

The post Tricks and Tips for Virtual Sex Virgins appeared first on Future of Sex.

Scientists have deconstructed the robot to rebuild her: better, stronger, faster… and sexier?Are these robot body bits more or less creepy than their full-bodied robot counterparts?

Heads

Achieving believably human movement, in particular facial expressions, isn’t just important for robots destined for public service roles, like the Geminoid F (in the video linked above) but is also vital for creating realistic and desirable machines for sexual service roles.

Dr. Takaaki Kuratate is moving towards creating this kind of realism using 3D projection onto a realistic sized and shaped head which can be viewed from multiple angles. Using a  “talking head animation engine” to compile audiovisual input of people talking into the camera, scientists are able to match phonetic bits of audio with the appropriate facial movements and recreate them in Mask-bot.

Robot faces have come a long way in the past few months, but not everyone is focused solely on the outward expression of emotion. It is in a robot’s ability to sense emotion that its facial expressions become relevant and responsive to its environment. This is also the goal of another projection-based robot face project, the GIA (Gestural Interactive Automaton) which will follow you around not only sensing and analysing, but recording and projecting your facial expressions onto its own “face” to mimic you!

Tails

Of course, a robot’s face is not the only part of its body that must be realistic, especially when that robot is designed specifically to touch and be touched.

Image and Video Source: novriki’s SHIRI on YouTube

The robot buttocks uses a pair of pneumatically-activated inflatable “muscles” which make up the gluteus maximus activator, then covered in a silicone skin. The creator says that he hopes “to approach the creation of sensitive and subtle expression by a humanoid robot using organic constructs” which “represents emotions with visual and tactual transformation of the muscles.”

When you touch a human body in certain ways, that human body reacts. Although flesh is much less predictably responsive than this particular device, its applications are fairly obvious in a sex robot market. If robot prostitutes are the reality of sex work, they will at least need to rival their flesh-and-blood competition!

In Between

Some motivated designers have turned that competitive drive inward, creating haptic devices which will allow a user to experience certain kinds of “self love” – in this case, a hug.

This kind of sensory input, whereby one can experience the sensation being given to another device, could create some interesting robotic/haptic intersections. If your sex robot didn’t actually have to move around (much) or be able to touch you (well), but could instead allow you to feel sensation simply by mirroring and transmitting your own touch back to you! With this kind of technology, the market could expand without the need for a massive leap in muscle-mimicry.

The post Sexy Robot Bodies: Haptic Heads and Techno Tails appeared first on Future of Sex.

The latest haptic creation out of Intelligence Robotics and Communications Laboratory in Japan…

…the Hugvie is a new long-distance hugging device in a body-shaped pillow. The robotic stuffed toy can transmit hugs via cellular signal connected to haptic outputs. Without the expressionless face of the Telenoid – deemed by Singularity Hub as “The Creepiest Telepresence Robot You’ll Ever Love” – this plush connective device by the same designer aims for cute rather than creepy, and succeeds.

Image from Video Source: DigInfo News YouTube Channel

The body pillow, which currently retails in Japan for around $60 US at the Vstone Robot Center in Tokyo, is equipped with two vibrators meant to mimic a heartbeat. Connected to a mobile device, they can transmit signals based on the callers voice, allowing the pillow to throb in a variety of ways based on the pitch, volume and tempo of the voice on the other end of the line.

What would you like to feel a long-distance lover say?

The post Reach Out and Hug Someone with Hugvie the Robot Pillow Phone appeared first on Future of Sex.

It was called “Best Invention of 2006” – so where is it?

A special project of Cute Circuit – “future fashion now” – the hug shirt is not actually available now and there is still no word about when it will be available.

The idea behind the hug shirt, conceived by company co-founders Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz, is that it has built in sensors and actuators which receive and transmit via Bluetooth data about temperature, texture, touch and emotion to another user, whether through another hug shirt, or a “virtual hug” on a cell phone or other mobile device.

Image Source: Flickr @hahatango

Of course, wearable tech isn’t just in the haute couture conceptual art communities. Art students and activists around the world are rebuilding their tech in open source environments, “hacking” popular culture and traditional clothing items for an advanced technological future, whatever that might look like.

Even big name Sony has attached their name to Hiromi Kiriki’s Nextep concept design for their wearable watch phone, which they put a date on of 2020.

Do you really think it will take that long for wearable tech to be available to the masses?

The post More Touch Tech for Long-Distance Lovers: Hugging Shirts, Coming Soon? appeared first on Future of Sex.