A first-hand quest for the future of sex

Over the past two months, I’ve been intimately involved with a series of machines. On a mission to find the future of sex, I’ve masturbated into a crowdfunded sex sleeve, been transported into a porn star’s anus and quite literally fucked myself.

On Friday, I reached my final destination. I can now say that it is a clumsy, unremarkable future.

NSFW Warning: This story may contain links to and descriptions or images of explicit sexual acts.

It started off simply enough. A friend sent over a series of four virtual-reality porn files and suggested I write something about my experience. I purchased a Gear VR, borrowed a Galaxy S6 and started the rather arduous task of getting those files up and running. The process took nearly two hours and brought back memories of the hours spent waiting for a single beefcake butt to download over dial-up. As with my early experiences with internet porn, hours of anticipation led to a few fleeting moments of release.

Having seen my share of poorly executed VR demos and having worked for a porn studio that, like so many others, valued quantity over quality, I set my expectations low. After downloading the files (each of which ranged from 1.5GB to 2GB); installing software to sideload the videos and eventually sideloading them onto the Galaxy S6; and, finally, registering an Oculus ID so that I could watch them in the official player, I was in.

As a child of the ’80s I was immediately pleased to see Oculus Video’s menu was like stepping inside Xanadu. My excitement ended there.

The four videos were the sort of low-budget European garbage I’d expected; the kind where excessive baby oil and tribal tattoos adorn hairless gym bodies. A quick search for “gay VR porn” turned up the same four videos (and a small handful of others) at VirtualRealGay, the brother company to straight porn VR factory VirtualRealPorn. Unfortunately for the rest of us, immersive porn is still largely a privilege preserved for straight dudes.

I’ve always prided myself on my ability to put personal preferences aside and just bone. So that’s what I did. I strapped on the Gear VR, selected the first of the four videos and explored a generic modern apartment, housing an equally generic muscle stud who stroked himself to completion, all the while uncomfortably staring me in the eye. I’d eventually bring myself to completion watching two unfortunately inked juice heads rub their slippery, bulging bodies against each other. But not before having some of the worst sex of my life.

… It was all I could do to maintain an erection while my face was buried in a wall of smooth, orange back skin.

The offending scene, titled Agency Boy, is shot from the perspective of the top, and the object of his gaze, and presumably the eponymous character, is a thin but well-built young man with a truly unfortunate top knot and one of those methy stares that you can’t unsee. Agency Boy is the antithesis of my type, but what made the experience so miserable was purely technical.

VR is still in an awkward adolescence: The devices, though sophisticated, are either tethered to PCs or dependent on smartphones with limited storage capacity. They’re also quite large and uncomfortable to wear for extended periods of time. My screen fogged up more than once and I had to take myself out of the experience entirely in order to perform simple tasks, like finding lube.

While we’re still in the early days of VR hardware, the headsets are hardly the only obstacle. Content producers are still trying to figure out how to shoot 180-degree video, leading to some truly bizarre perspectives. Getting too close can create a warped, fisheye effect, turning an otherwise normal intimate encounter into a fun-house anatomy lesson. Shooting too far away can create a disconnect. In the case of Agency Boy, it was all I could do to maintain an erection while my face was buried in a wall of smooth, orange back skin.

While novel, my first time with VR porn was, as I’d suspected, complicated, cumbersome and ultimately underwhelming. As a gay millennial accustomed to the ease and abundance of free tube-porn, I just couldn’t see VR upending my solo sex life. At least not now.

Lucky for me, it wasn’t long before I received an unsolicited package containing three identical versions of the Autoblow 2. This male masturbator is a crowdfunding success story that promises to simulate the experience of oral sex. It even has a tiny silicone mouth, because, you know, authenticity is important when a giant plastic tube is fellating you.

The Autoblow 2, dubbed “your blowjob robot” on the company’s website, simulates knob slobbing with a typical silicone sleeve, a motor with adjustable speeds and a series of bead-covered springs that roll up and down the penis. Oh, and it plugs into the wall, so no charging necessary! While this may not be the sentient, Stepford-style companion threatening to replace flesh-and-blood lovers, it occurred to me that this might be my chance to get out ahead of the robo-sexual revolution.

I might as well have stuck my dick in a vacuum.

Like my experience with VR porn, the Autoblow 2 was pure novelty. The barrier to entry was much lower — all you really have to do is plug the thing in, turn it on, pump some lube in the mouth hole and go to town — but the end result was just as unfulfilling.

I would again rub one out successfully and without the hours of setup and obstructed vision. But over the past 20-odd years, I’ve learned how to use my hand in ways no man or machine can emulate. The Autoblow 2 was a poor substitute for my hand and a far cry from a real-life blowjob. In addition to tying me to an electrical outlet, the device is ridiculously large, requiring both hands to hold in place, and the sounds of the motor inside, in concert with an unidentifiable high-pitched squeal, betrayed the “robot’s” lack of sophistication. I might as well have stuck my dick in a vacuum.

But I didn’t, because I’m not dumb, and besides, I was on a mission to find the future of sex, which I’m pretty sure doesn’t involve screwing a Roomba. Another thing I won’t be sticking my dick in anytime soon is a penis pedometer, but in researching these mythical devices for another column I came across yet another supposedly revolutionary sex toy: Kiiroo.

And that’s when things really got weird.

Look for the conclusion to this story in the next installment of Computer Love.

Use the Complete Game Developer Course bundle to take over the Google Play Store

We are still in the early parts of 2016, with everyone hopefully still working towards their New Years Resolutions. Some folks have more than likely chosen to teach themselves to develop. Whether it’s to try to become the face behind the next Flappy Birds, or just something to tinker around with, we’ve got a great deal to help get you started.

The Complete Game Developer Course has loads of content, along with the tools that you will need to create the best games, and take over the Play Store Leaderboards. With the help of Construct 2, a game development engine, and Photoshop, the lessons learned with this tool and the developer bundle, will give you all the necessary tools for success.

• Learn practical, employable skills w/ over 423 lectures & 34 hours of content
• Start making games from scratch w/ Construct 2
• Create 60 real-life games to add to your portfolio
• Make art & game design in Photoshop
• Watch the courses at any speed you want
• Build a variety of different types of games
• Learn from a professional game developer who has released over 40 games

With over 420 courses, and over 30 hours of content, the Complete Game Developer Course will teach you to build 60 real-life games, and teach you numerous invaluable lessons. Normally priced at $300, all of these goodies will set you back only $39. At a savings over almost 90%, this deal is too good to pass up on, if you’re looking to get into the game development world.

You can find this, and many other great tech bargains through our Deals page. Backed by StackCommerce, there are daily promos, giveaways, freebies, and much more!

AndroidGuys Deals: The Complete Game Developer Course

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Edward Snowden’s OS of choice gets a major update

If you still assume you don’t forfeit the right to privacy by going online, there are very few truly secure OS options. The best one might be the Linux flavor called Tails, recommended by none other than Edward Snowden. Its encrypted apps include email and messaging clients, a web browser, and of course, the anonymizing Tor network.The folks behind the open-source program have just launched version 2.0, with a new UI and numerous security fixes.

The update uses a new, more modern Gnome shell that gives it a more “modern, simple, and actively developed desktop environment,” according to the developers. At the same time, Tails 2.0 keeps the applications, places menu, and windows list front and center. In addition to fixing the security bugs and updating to the latest version of the Tor browser (5.5), the team also made services harder to exploit by “sandboxing” them, improved the shutdown memory wipe, sanitized the code by replacing custom scripts and replaced the email system with Icedove, a Mozilla Thunderbird offshoot.

The new version is now available to download. In fact, if you’re already using version 1.8.2 of Tails, the developers said it has “numerous security holes,” and advised everyone to update to Tails 2.0.

Source: TAILS

The FCC is going to war over set-top boxes

The FCC is preparing to propose rule changes that’ll loosen cable companies’ stranglehold on the set-top box market. According to the Wall Street Journal, Tom Wheeler is planning to give consumers far more choice over what hardware they can use. Right now, if you’re a Comcast user, then you’re expected to rent a Comcast box, or shell out for a TiVo and pay for it to be installed. The FCC, however, wants you to be able to choose whatever damn box you wanna use, so long as it’s fit for purpose. AllVid is back, baby!

As well as opening up the set-top box market up to third parties, the proposals are expected to make the cost of renting a box a whole lot cheaper. The Consumer Federation of America believes that citizens are being overcharged for their boxes by anything up to $14 billion a year. It argues that while PCs, smartphones and HDTVs have fallen in price as they’ve grown more sophisticated, cable box prices have skyrocketed. It’s a rough estimate, but the federation believes that the charges have increased by a whopping 185 percent.

The most obvious beneficiary to the AllVid proposals would be TiVo, which has made a third-party cable box for years. Another firm that’s thrown its weight behind the system is Google, which the WSJ suggests would fancy getting an easy route into more living rooms. Another backer is Sony, which partnered with the search engine to make both GoogleTV and Android TV hardware in the last few years. We’d mention Apple’s long-rumored TV project here, but the indications are that the company wants to bypass the cable world entirely.

It should come as no surprise, to anyone, that the cable industry is lining up its forces in front of the FCC’s gates. The paper believes that 40 companies are poised, ready to form a “coalition” that’ll throw money, spokespeople and whining in order to kill AllVid dead. If we were feeling cynical, we’d point out how many of these companies previously funded fake grassroots consumer groups in an attempt to kill net neutrality. But we aren’t, so let’s just assume that these firms wouldn’t be so underhand and devious as to attempt to mislead the public.

One group that has already come out on cable’s side is the Congressional Black Caucus, represented here by Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke. Clarke wrote to the FCC in December to protest the change, saying that AllVid would be a “disaster” for consumers and minority interests in the media. She says that the proposals would force users to rent additional equipment that failed to uphold consumer protections around privacy, emergency alerts and kids’ programming. In addition, she throws a subtle swipe at Google, describing merchants who “sell intrusive advertising without sharing any revenue with programmers.”

The revived AllVid proposals are expected to arrive in the very near future, hopefully in time for John Oliver to send his legions of internet fans over to the FCC’s website once again.

Source: WSJ, Public Knowledge, (2)

Boost Mobile will now pay subscribers to watch ads

Sprint Corporation’s prepaid brand Boost Mobile on Tuesday made a bunch of announcements such as new family plans, free mobiles and roaming in Mexico. That’s not all – the company is even going to pay you to watch ads. Yes, it will offer a $5 discount for customers who don’t mind watching an ad when they unlock their phones.

“Receive a $5 discount off any current Boost Mobile plan after enrolling in Auto Re-Boost. Boost’s automatic payment method allows a customer to register a credit card or debit card, or bank account with Boost Mobile, which will be used to automatically make a payment each month.”

– Boost Mobile

Boost Mobile has also launched new family plans options of two, three or four lines for $70, $90 or $100 a month respectively. Under this plan, each line will get unlimited talk, text and data and 5 GB of high-speed data per line.

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