Robots, VR and the future of male masturbators

In my time as a human with a penis, I’ve penetrated more inanimate objects than I care to admit.

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

There were pillows, mattresses, bottles, a couple of cuts of raw meat and even a vacuum. Yes, sometime not long after I discovered the wonders of masturbation, I attempted to have sex with a vacuum and it turned out about as well as you might imagine.

When I was a kid, masturbation was an adventure in engineering. As I’ve come of age, however, so has the sex-toy market. After centuries of ejaculating into whatever we can find, a seemingly robust market has sprouted up around male-masturbation aids. With the promise of sex robots and fully immersive VR on the horizon, manufacturers are finding new and engaging ways to embrace the dick.

Over the course of the past two months, I’ve had sex with a crowdfunded “blowjob robot,” fucked myself with the help of teledildonics and had my fair share of VR porn experiences. Sex shops sell celebrity pocket pussies, just-the-tip vibrators and silicone sex sleeves in increasing numbers. A new breed of masturbators, pump, suck, stroke and connect to the internet like sexualized IoT appliances, playing on the promise of fully autonomous lovers.

Despite all of the innovation in male masturbation, I’ve yet to find a sperm catcher as appealing as my left hand. So, why, all of a sudden, is the sex-toy industry so focused on the dick? In my quest to get a grasp on the rise of the male masturbator I found that the recent influx has a long history and a potentially rich future.

“If you ask guys: hey, do you want a machine that makes your penis feel good, the answer will nearly always be yes.” — Brian Sloan, Autoblow

As Anthony Ferguson points out in The Sex Doll: A History, the first known sex dolls — precursors to today’s pocket pussies and tomorrow’s sexbots — appeared during the 17th century. Long stints at sea led some very resourceful sailors to create life-size sex dolls out of cloth, that they then shared among their shipmates.

Ferguson writes that the earliest manufactured sex dolls — expensive, hand-made inflatables — likely appeared in France during the turn of the 20th century. Advertisements from that era even refer to full-bodied figures with “phonographic attachments” to give the devices voices, and an “apparatus” to give their limbs movement. The iconic flat-faced blowup doll apparently appeared in the 1970s, but its wasn’t until the end of the 20th century that the flesh-like silicone figures we see today started to take shape.

Perhaps the most obvious descendant of these early sex toys is the RealDoll, intricately detailed silicone mannequins made to order for deep-pocketed fetishists. While these lifelike sexual aids may not be for everyone, there’s a whole new wave of male masturbators democratizing dick tickling. Brian Sloan, the man behind the “blowjob robot” Kickstarter success story, the Autoblow 2, attributes the boom in male sex toys at least in part to the affordability of materials like silicone.

“Customers are coming to expect quality materials in sex toys. The stuff that the big ‘founding’ sex-toy companies in the US got away with selling in the ’80s and ’90s and even still, to some extent, today is pretty disgusting,” Sloan said.

Ferguson cites three types of sex dolls: vinyl novelty toys with painted-on faces; heavier though still awkward latex toys; and the more realistic and forgiving silicone figures that can take the shape of a full human or just part of the body, such as with porn-star branded vaginal or anal molds. The majority of today’s male masturbators, including the Autoblow 2, are made in-part or in whole from silicone that mimics lifeless human flesh.

Sloan produces and directly markets a number of different sex toys, but it’s the Autoblow 2 — a large canister-like device with a silicone sleeve at its center and a small, fleshy mouth to stick your dick in — that has captured the public’s attention. He has sold 90,000 units since August 2014, despite the device’s outsize proportions, dependency on an outlet to function and a sound that its maker compares to windshield wipers.

“I created a device that finally gave men the chance to experience something they’d all envisioned for years while using their hands or the more traditional devices,” Sloan said. “If you ask guys: ‘Hey, do you want a machine that makes your penis feel good?’ The answer will nearly always be yes.”

“Let’s face it: Any time a new technology is introduced into society, it’s not long until someone finds a way to connect it to sex.” — Sherri L. Shaulis, AVN

Sloan’s machine, while still relatively rudimentary, has benefited from material technologies and the promise of human-like robotic lovers.

“For me at least, the next steps are working on robotic features that are more human-like in their movement styles, and to innovate on the materials that come into contact with your penis to make those more human-like as well,” Sloan said.

He dismisses the power of virtual reality to have a great impact on the male sex toy market, pointing to the expense of current hardware, but many in the industry see VR as a driving force.

“Let’s face it: Any time a new technology is introduced into society, it’s not long until someone finds a way to connect it to sex,” Sherri L. Shaulis, senior editor of pleasure products for Adult Video News (AVN), said. “For the past few years, we’ve seen a wave of app-driven sex toys but most of those were vibrators geared toward women. Now, companies are pairing strokers/masturbators with VR porn to give men a truly immersive experience.”

Shaulis points out that sex-toy sales are hard to quantify, despite reports of massive growth like those in a recent Broadly story. Anecdotally speaking, however, she’s seen a big shift in dick-centric pleasure products, driven at least in part by virtual reality.

“Most manufacturers and retailers keep their numbers close to the vest,” Shaulis said. “But I can attest to the fact that sex toys geared toward men — especially masturbators/strokers — are getting a lot more attention these days from manufacturers. With the increased focus recently on VR porn, many manufacturers are trying to capitalize on that, and the easiest way to do that is to create products that allow men to masturbate while viewing and ‘experiencing’ VR adult content.”

Tenga, a pioneer of male masturbators, has sold 47 million toys since its launch in 2005 and has seen year-over-year growth every year since, according to Eddie Marklew, the brand’s global marketing manager. Tenga was founded on the idea of quality design and materials, and while it has its sights set on the future, its product lineup mostly consists of low-tech, high-design male masturbators. Marklew says advancements like teleldildonics and virtual reality hold a lot of promise for the industry, but Tenga’s sole focus is on a simple user experience.

“Right now, the technology is not quite up to the level it needs to be to become anything beyond a gimmick, so we have no concrete plans for a teledildonics line just yet,” Marklew said. “That said, you can be sure we have our finger on the pulse for the latest tech innovations and our R&D team are constantly coming up with new ideas to take advantage of any advancements.”

Like Marklew, Sloan sees the power of simplicity when it comes to male desire. Like most things in consumer technology, we want the stuff we stick our dicks into to just work. Some of the most successful male sex toys on the market today are simple silicone reproductions of porn stars’ orifices. There’s no doubt the promise of sex robots and fully immersive pornography have had an impact on male sex toys, but as the history of the sex doll bears out, men are simple creatures looking for simple human contact. When that’s not available, they’ll go for the next best thing.

“As interesting and fast-growing as the market is for higher-end-technology-oriented male-masturbation products, I gotta admit that we sell many thousands of traditional fake vaginas every year,” Sloan said, “Some guys just enjoy getting on top of something that vaguely resembles a vagina and having their way with it.”

Apache helicopters now have real-time drone vision

After 30 years in service, the Army’s AH–64E Apache attack helicopters now have the ability to fly with an unmanned wingman. A new system called Manned-Unmanned Teaming (or MUM-T) allows Apache flight crews to tap into the real-time video feeds, sensors and control systems of nearby Army Shadow and Grey Eagle drones. According to Scout Warrior, the system is already being used in Afghanistan.

“Now before the unit even deploys out of the Forward Arming Refueling Point, or FARP, they can actually bring up the UAS (drone) feed, look through the sensors and see the target they are going to attack up to 50 or 60 miles away,” Colonel Jeff Hager of the Army’s Apache program told Scout Warrior. The system also allows the helicopter crews to keep tabs on moving targets why they are en route to a destination.

The MUM-T system is similar the Navy’s similar cloud computing efforts to share data between drones, manned aircraft and combat ships. The AH-64E, meanwhile, is the latest version of the Apache platform, which boasts a new engine, composite rotor blades and next-generation avionics that make it a lighter, faster and more maneuverable model that the previous Delta edition. The “E” models have already begun flight missions in Afghanistan, but the Army plans to have an arsenal of 690 total AH-64Es by 2025.

The Arecibo radio telescope is in trouble again

Unfortunately, the Arecibo Observatory’s iconic radio telescope is facing an uncertain future once again… and there’s only a short amount of time for you to have a say in its fate. The National Science Foundation is considering a number of options for the space-centric facility, including either putting its operations in the hands of partners or shutting it down entirely. It’s holding public meetings today (June 7th) and accepting written comments until June 23rd to discuss the “environmental impact” of its options, but there’s a good chance that the conversation will revolve around the telescope’s survival.

It might be crucial to keep the Arecibo telescope around. While there are newer, more advanced telescopes (such as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array), Scientific American notes that Arecibo’s giant dish is particularly well-suited to finding gravitational waves and pulsars. Lose it and you’d suddenly have much less data.

There’s also the simple practical concerns. Shutting down the telescope would be expensive: completely restoring the Puerto Rican landscape is estimated to cost $100 million, or more than 12 years of operation with its current budget. And that’s excluding the economic costs to the community around the site. Although it’d be unrealistic to keep Arecibo running indefinitely, it’s possible that business as usual would be both cheaper and smarter.

Via: Scientific American

Source: GPO (PDF)

Gigabyte gaming line-up expanded with Auros X7DT and X5S v5 powerhouses

During this year’s Computex show in Taipei we got to spend some time checking out Gigabyte’s latest gaming laptops: the Aorus series. And what we were treated to were a mixture of already impressive machines and exciting in-the-pipeline news.

We kick off with the virtual reality-ready Auros X7DT, essentially the laptop equivalent of an Nvidia 980 desktop build – a slim one at that. Its thickest point is a smidge over 2.5cm.

That helps it achieve a comfortable form factor when used as a backpack VR PC – something of a trend at this year’s show. You can get an impressively low key but practical harness which allows the laptop to stay ventilated while you play.

The X7DT weighs in at just 3.2kg, making it lighter than other devices that we saw in this format over the show, which were around the 5kg mark. It’s an elegant solution and surprisingly strong with elasticated corners and a simple velcroed cross-strap to hold it securely in place.

Pocket-lint

Gigabyte Auros X7DT

Those familiar with the Aorus series won’t be surprised to see excellent ventilation on the X7 itself and some trademark design features. The series is good-looking as a whole with an anodised aluminium chassis in a matte black finish and a light-up logo on the lid.

We’ve always liked the kooky form factor of the Aorus series, the outsized vents call for some balance on the lid which they achieve by making a slightly peaked cover.

The screen has a 17.3-inch Full HD IPS (1920 x 1080) display and it supports Nvidia’s G-sync. We’re talking Intel Core i7 – 6820HK – for the CPU and 8GB on the GPU. There are three solid state drives plus one HDD. You can push the RAM up from the installed 16GB to 64 GB if you so desire.

If you’re looking to combine powerful mobility with VR-ready gaming prowess then the X7DT is certainly worth considering, although it will set you back a pretty penny at around £2,700.

Gigabyte was also showing its new RGB keyboard at Computex. It comes with a plethora of options and LED colours – 16.8 million of them, to be exact.

Each and every key is programmable and you can set up different audio and colour profiles on a game-by-game basis.

Pocket-lint

Gigabyte Auros X5S v5

The keyboard will be found on the 15-inch Auros X5S v5 which has seen some changes from the previous generation. It now has a new 3K panel and features 5 milisecond refresh rates (up from 20 milliseconds).

There are some design changes too with redesigned ventilation providing more vents just below the screen and a matte trackpad replacing the fingerprint-gathering glass on earlier versions.

The Gigabyte Auros X5S v5 sports the GTX 980M GPU and Intel Core i7 – 6700HQ. The whole device weighs just 2.5kg, which is perfectly acceptable for a gaming laptop and is a shade under 233mm thick.

Samsung Galaxy S7 Active official: 4000mAh battery and shatter-resistant screen

Samsung has just dropped a new Galaxy S7 smartphone variant and it could have done it literally, this thing is tough.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 Active is, like the S6 Active before it, a tough version of Samsung’s flagship smartphone. But unlike many tough phones this handset packs some serious specs too.

On the tough side of things this handset packs plenty of punch. The screen is protected by a shatter resistant glass that should be able to withstand a drop or two. The rest of the handset is encased in a protective rubberised shell that will also help to absorb the impact of knocks and drops. All that and, like the standard S7, it’s water-resistant too.

The display is a 5.1-inch QHD Super AMOLED screen. Powering the handset is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 CPU with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage. In a first for a Galaxy toughphone there’s also a fingerprint reader on the handset. In the rear is a 12-megapixel camera while the front features a 5-megapixel selfie snapper.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 Active will be an AT&T exclusive and is available from 10 June for around $26.50 per month on a standard Next plan, or $33.13 on a Next Every Year plan.

READ: Samsung Galaxy S7 review: The unsung hero?

Skip the pocket-poking key clutter with S-Key Organizer and 16GB USB Key Drive

The bulkiness of old school keychains is a relic of an era when form and function didn’t cooperate, but technology has made great strides since those original-design days – and it’s time to bring your most frequently-used necessities up to date.

Ditch the poking annoyance of a pocketful of keys with S-Key Organizer and 16GB USB Key Drive, allowing you to store up to 8 keys in a stylish and gorgeously compact leather clip.

With a built-in 16GB key-shaped hard drive to top it off, your S-Key is the modern upgrade your pockets have been waiting for – and the resourcefulness you’ve been missing. Sure, your wardrobe may even thank you, now that your keys are snugly organized and won’t be tearing at the fabric of your pants. For a limited time, you can pick it up at 22 per cent off on Pocket-lint Deals.

The S-Key’s flexible functionality is half its charm. Add additional keys or gate remotes with the included outer attachment clip, and organize your essentials like a space-saving master. The USB drive covers your modern necessities, with a quick 16GB on hand for easy file transfers and backup, no matter where you may be in the world. Add the simple and sleek design style, and you’ve got a gorgeous key loop with class.

Upgrade and keep it simple with the S-Key Organizer and 16GB USB Key Drive, now £26.01 ($38) with free U.S. shipping on Pocket-lint Deals.