The State of Teledildonics and Tech Sex Toys
Wikipedia entry on teledildonics
It's always been man's dream to stick his dick in something that will get him off without having to cuddle afterward. It's always been woman's dream to not have to deal with chauvinist males who want to stick their dick in pretty much anything. Sure, procreation is the final goal of sex, but these days, just getting off is a damn nice luxury.
As a species, we're getting to the point where we can apply technology to this. Pornography has been the leader of technical revolutions for years (photography, film, and the internet have all profited greatly due to nudie pix). Current animatronic and robotic technology is falling in price to the point where people can start putting toys together in their own home. Add to this the widespread use of webcams and the internet, and suddenly being half a world away from the person you deseperately want to fuck isn't quite as bad.
This site is dedicated to tracking what's going on in teledildonics, as well as projects relating to them. Together, we'll all get our computers sticky.
So, before we start making toys ourselves, it's a good idea to figure out what everyone else is doing first, so we don't step on any feet/patents (or at least, steal the ideas in a different enough way not to do so :) ). Please note that I don't actually own either of these toys. The ideas I'm expressing here are from what I've been able to figure out from their websites.
What's available right now:
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The Virtual Sex Machine
By VR Innovations
Price: $400 w/ Recurring charges for content
Press:
Salon Article
The Virtual Sex Machine was the first teledildonics toy I'd heard of for guys. That being said, there's not a whole lot of "tele" about it. The basic premise is that you buy content encoded with special timings that are relayed through the serial port. Serial port goes to pump, pump goes on penis, and there you go. However, you can only buy said videos from VR Innovations, the machine won't do anything without them, and they'll set you back a pretty penny. The experience is interactive, and the machine probably wouldn't be too bad to hack, what with serial packet analysis being easy and all. But worth the money/time? Probably not.
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The Sinulator/Interactive Fleshlight
By Sinulate Entertainment LLC
Price: Sinulator: ~$150, toys extra. Interactive Fleshlight: $99.95. Recurring content charges for all.
Press:
Sex Drive article in Wired by Regina Lynn
The Sinulator and Interactive Fleshlight are actual teledildonics, through once again, you'll have to go through a third-party medium to use anything (I'll get to this later). The sinulator uses either IR or RF (I don't have one so I'm guessing at their wireless here, I somehow think it isn't bluetooth. Which is too bad, that'd be fun with the right cell phone), and connects to any toy you have through a special converter. All this converter does is regulate voltage to the toy based on the wireless signals it's getting. Less voltage, less vibrate, more voltage, more vibrate. Pretty simple idea.
The Interactive Fleshlight is a pretty neat idea. For those unfamiliar with the fleshlight, it's a plastic tube with a silicone type skin insert that comes in a variety of hole sizes, colors, thicknesses, etc... There are screw caps on both ends of the FL. The big end is where you go about your business. The cap on the smaller end is usually put back on after the penis is inserted, thereby creating suction. Put all that together, and you have a decent blowjob in a can. :)
Now, the suction is where the Interactive Fleshlight really becomes interactive. The IFL replaces the end cap of the old fleshlight with a cap with a small tube, which is attached to an unassuming beige box. Inside the beige box is a pressure meter, that reports back the variance in pressure over the USB cable. Penis goes in/out, pressure goes up/down, and a fucking sensor is born! There are games that can be played on the sinulator site with this, though once again, they cost, and it's per day, not once per game. Yay for recurring profit!
So, how these go together. On the sinulator site is a java applet that interfaces with the drivers for both of these toys. People can connect to each other (only through said java applet, which I somehow bet costs something), and *very* basically have sex over the internet. The sinulator can be controlled either by a control panel on the applet, or else through whatever signals the Interactive Fleshlight is sending as the male side of the pair is using it. Interesting idea, and probably the first mass marketed real teledildonics toy, but still far, far from the Orgasmatron that Sleeper promised us.
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Televibe
By Calston Industries
Price: ~$140. No Content/Use charge
Recognizes and uses phone tones for controlling the vibrator. Really neat idea! Unfortunatly, it seems like getting the phone dialed in your ear during sex would really suck, unless you have a tone fetish or something. (Insert genital phreaking joke here).
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USB Powered Vibes
By A whole bunch of different people
Price: More than a usual vibe, because USB = expensive for no reason
Please note that there are a ton of toys like this. That page just shows a small portion of them.
So I don't know if this even really counts. It's just pulling power out of the USB port (You can throw as much current as you want over USB. Quite a few things use USB A/B cables that plug directly into wall power these days. Crazy!). Interesting idea, and damn good idea for someone like the sinulator people to rip off (Full portable sex system! No wall wart necessary! You people owe me royalties if this actually happens).
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Information available at the moment:
Sex Drive by Regina Lynn - A great series of articles in Wired Magazine about the future of sex. Yahoo forum here.
Opendildonics.org - GNU based teledildonics. As of this writing, they've got a vibrator on/off control through a parallel port. This should be just the thing for all those poor people who never get laid due to using Linux. =D =D
Toys in Babeland's Geek Sex Toys. I actually *do* endorse Toys In Babeland. I always loved going to their store in Seattle.
