Emerging Realities

  • A Real Doll Robot?

    Real Doll's Animatronic Love Doll
    Real Doll is the Internet's popular, yet immobile, $5,000 silicone "love doll" made by Abyss Creations. As in (**what is that story called??), in Jones' (*year) Cybersex collection of short stories, Real Doll has plans to create an animatronic version of the life-size doll. The Real Doll Web site states in their FAQ, "'Question: Do you offer electronic or animatronic versions of REALDOLL? Not at this time, but we hope to offer such dolls in the future." According to the Detour Magazine (*no date) article entitled "I'm Too Sexy for the Future," by Susannah Breslin, "she'll be ready to be truly had by consumers in just a few years." "Miss Animatronic is expected to blink randomly, respond orally when touched erotically, infra-red sense and verbally greet her man, and event contract genitally during sex." "Of a male Realdoll model, Abyss says: "We have had some serious issues." Going from flaccid to erect, it seems, is presenting quite the structural challenge." Perhaps the next step, as in (*whatever the hell that story was called), is to create a doll that is not perfect-looking, full of quirks and spontaneity...

  • Force Feedback

    A company called Immersion has created a force feedback technology that can be incorporated into any number of devices attached to your computer, that allows the user to feel what they can see on the Web. Here is how the Immersion Web site describes the technology:

      The mechanics of electronic touch TouchSense devices are neither purely electronic nor simply mechanical. They're both. As electro-mechanical devices, they translate digital information into physical sensations. For example, when you push on a mouse or a joystick, the device pushes back—using magnetic actuators and sensors built into the device. Technically speaking, this process is called force feedback. And resistance is only one of the hundreds of sensations TouchSense devices can deliver. Springs, liquids, textures, vibrations, you name it, TouchSense can simulate the sensation, as long as it can be translated into a mathematical equation.

      As you'd imagine, some of those equations can be pretty complex, requiring many instantaneous calculations. So a proprietary Immersion microprocessor is built into the TouchSense device. The Immersion microprocessor's design is optimized for performing calculations related specifically to touch sensation. It delivers results so rapidly that what you feel in your hand corresponds precisely with what you see on the screen, whether you're playing a game or practicing key-hole surgery.

      But actuators, sensors, and microprocessors are only part of the TouchSense story. Immersion's proprietary software lies at the heart of our technology. Unfortunately, we can't tell you much about our proprietary software, simply because it's a trade secret. What we can say is that when our customers add TouchSense technologies to their mechanical devices, the feeling is mutual and magical.

    According to the BBC News Online article, "Touching the Web," the company isn't revealing much about the obvious cybersexual applications of force feedback technology.

      'Smooth, slippery'
      "It allows the cursor to become an extension of your hand. Anything the cursor touches, you can feel," said Lewis Rosenberg, Chief executive of the Immersion Corporation, based in San Jose, California.

      He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The technology allows you to simulate the feel of any type of physical property, whether it be the weight or the stiffness or the texture. Things can feel smooth, slippery."

      Mr Rosenberg waxed lyrical about the "additional perceptual benefits" of the invention for science, commerce and education but was more coy when asked about the obvious pornographic element of such a sensual piece of technology.

      He said: "The 'adult' market is certainly one but we're seeing interest from web developers from across the spectrum."

  • Scent
    CAN SCRATCH 'N SNIFF COMPUTERS BE FAR BEHIND?
    Shopping online for a Mother's Day gift and can't decide which perfume to choose? Not a problem any more. TriSenx has patented a technology that will let you click and smell. Using a device something like a desktop printer, you can download a smell or taste from the Internet. A picture of a strawberry, for example, both smells and tastes like, well, a strawberry. The scent technology, which several companies have been working on, works by mixing chemicals to create the desired smell. The scents are printed on a cardstock paper now, but future plans call for them to print to a communion-like wafer that would make it easier to sample tastes from the Web. Will it catch on? At its current price of $398, skeptics abound. "If it's going to be a couple of hundred bucks I'd be hard-pressed to see who's going to go out and buy a smell generator," says one analyst. Numerous businesses have expressed interest in the idea, including fragrance makers and cookie companies. (San Jose Mercury News 1 May 2000)
    http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/ap/docs/481779l.htm

    Click-and-Sniff Computers Due Soon
    MSNBC
    http://www.msnbc.com/news/456274.asp


    DIGITAL SCENTS IN SEARCH OF DOLLARS
    "Aromagenomics" is the buzz word at DigiScents' booth at Internet World. "DigiScents is combining biotechnology, informatics, and sensory research to create a digital platform that will revolutionize the world of smell," says DigiScents CEO Joel Bellenson. The company is taking its technology from the lab to the market, through partnerships with Web companies and packaged goods firms to bring aromas to the Internet. "Digital scent will be added to the streaming media, e-mail, online games, e-commerce and advertising," says Bellenson. "You will be able to watch scented flash presentations, send scented greeting cards, download aromatherapy tracks, and design your own smells and flavors." The company has already signed up with RealNetworks to add the technology to RealPlayer and has other deals in the works. (CRN/TechWeb 26 Oct 2000) http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20001026S0007


  • Cyber Sex Suit with DVD Interaction by Vivid Entertainment

    Vivid Entertainment (Vivid Video) has a very successful adult movie and online pornography business. They are now working on a CyberSex suit that responds to adult movies on DVD. Each month a DVD film will come out (to be sold for $35), with a whole new set of sensations for your suit. The suit comes equipped with 36 sensors, which deliver the sensations of heat, vibration, and feather touch.

    "Developers of the cyber sex suit faced a different set of difficulties, namely mimicking sensations produced by real world touch. Vivid Entertainment's David James and Lisa, a model and suit tester. James, the president of the Van Nuys, Calif.,-based Vivid Entertainment, said the suit works like this:
    The initiator uses software on his computer to select one of five sensations— tickle, pinprick, vibration, hot or cold— and direct it to a specific part of the suit wearer’s body. An electronic signal is sent to a DVD player, through the Internet, to the suit wearer’s computer and finally to the suit itself, where it activates the appropriate sensor.

    "To be honest, it’s nothing magical," he said. "I’m sure a pair of college students could have probably sat down and come up with something far more futuristic than we have here. The big advantage we’ve got, of course, is our marketing ability to first of all have it made and then be able to sell it worldwide."

    He said the company has spent about $180,000 to develop the suit, which he said will retail for about $170.

    But before seeking approval from the Federal Trade Commission to market the suit, James’ team must conquer a final sticky problem: Ensuring that the range of electrical sources and delivery systems around the world don’t trigger a potentially dangerous electrical surge.

    FEARS OF A SURGE
    "If, for example, a chap was wearing a pacemaker ... and he’s hooked up to a generator ... he could (be) fried or whatever by that extra power going through it," James said. Despite such difficulties, some observers see the advances incorporated in the cyber sex suit, particularly its use of DVD technology, as an important step toward a new breed of interactive products that incorporate some sensory capability with high-resolution video for a more-realistic experience."
  • Implants
    • Kevin Warwick

      "My wife, Irena, has bravely volunteered to go ahead with his-and-hers implants. The way she puts it is that if anyone is going to jack into my limbic system - to know definitively when I'm feeling happy, depressed, angry, or even sexually aroused - she wants it to be her.

      Irena and I will investigate the whole range of emotion and sensation. If I move a hand or finger, then send those signals to Irena, will she make the same movement? I think it likely she'll feel something. Might she feel the same pain as I do? If I sprained my ankle, could I send the signal to Irena to make her feel as though she has injured herself?

      We know that different people have varying emotional responses to the same stimulus. If I send a particular signal to her, will she recognize it in the same way? Based on my own reaction to having my emotional impulses replayed on my nervous system, we will have a preliminary idea of what Irena might experience, but we are entering progressively uncharted territory once we attempt to relay prerecorded signals. What her brain can comprehend in terms of my neural impulses is completely unknown. Yet if Irena's brain can make out, even roughly, my incoming signals, then I believe her own stored knowledge will be able to decipher the information into a recognizable sensation or emotion.

      We would also like to demonstrate how the signals could be sent over the Internet. One of us will travel to New York, and the other will remain in the UK. Then we'll send real-time movement and emotion signals from person to person across the continents. I am terrified of heights. If I'm staying on the 16th floor of a hotel in the US and I transmit my signals to Irena, how will they affect her? How far could we go in transmitting feelings and desires? I want to find out. What if the other person became sexually aroused? Could we record signals at the height of our arousal, then play these back and relive the experience? (As keen as I am to know the answer here, I have difficulty imagining what the scientific press might make of it.)"


      Chip Implants: Big Brother's Last Laugh?
      Salon
      http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/09/07/chips/index.html


      Human chip implants not going skin deep
      http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/14292.html


  • Haptics

    Foster-Miller also had vests stuffed full of haptic sensors, developed as part of a program to help fight spatial disorientation among pilots. (A gentle nudge from one of the sensors helps orient pilots who may have briefly lost their true orientation.)

    haptics community
    http://www.sensable.com/community/index.htm
    http://www.foster-miller.com/

  • Wearables
    • Roz Picard's Galvactivator - A glove which indicates arousal (MIT, Affective Computing)*
    • BodyMedia
      Presently Vaporware
      "BodyMedia is a revolutionary healthy lifestyle company. We provide fashionable and wearable health monitors that sense and automagically record important body stats with an easy-to-use web site to help you define, develop and maintain a healthy, balanced lifestyle."

      From BodyMedia Survey: "Would you like to share information about your body with others?
      If yes, whom would you share it with?

        -Doctor or Medical Specialist
        -Personal Trainer
        -Spouse, family, or loved ones
        -I would not share my information with others"

  • Pornographic Treasure Hunt!




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