LAS VEGAS - The Consumer Electronics Show may put on a serious face each year, but we all know it's just an excuse for engineers to flock to Las Vegas and visit the real gadget convention: the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo.
While both shows were smaller this year than in the past, presumably due to fears about the economy, that didn't stop developers from introducing the latest in consumer-friendly sex tech amidst the bedlam of the show floor.
OhMiBod FreeStyle
It's not a techie trade show unless it has iPod accessories, and AEE is no different. With the FreeStyle, the OhMiBod folks have found a way to untangle us from the spaghetti of headphone cable and vibrator cord: they've gone wireless.
Now you can plug a transmitter into your iPod, computer, stereo system, home theater, club DJ mixing board, or any other device with a headphone jack and roam 50 feet away while the music powers the vibrator you've hidden in your pants.
Need I spell out how fun this is going to be at parties?
Real Touch
What if you could not only watch an adult film but also feel everything the characters in the movie are feeling? That's the intent of the Real Touch, a gizmo for guys that attempts to replicate the feelings of wetness, warmth, suction and friction being played out on screen.
You attach the device to your computer via USB and launch one of several specially encoded videos. Yes, that's right, dedicated programmers have worked late into the wee hours, night after night, coding porn frame-by-frame in order to bring you many a hands-free orgasm even when you're alone.
The mechanism follows the plot of the film. When the performer sucks, the Real Touch provides suction. When the performer flips around and offers up vaginal or anal sex, the machine tightens accordingly, squeezing and stroking, automatically adding more warmth and wetness when appropriate.
The device responds only to these special videos, not to another person in real-time. However, the developers plan to launch a similar device for women while also enabling it to work with webcams, bringing a new layer of touch to cybersex.
Loveable Dolls
Matt Krivicke, former CEO of RealDoll, has launched a new company that ... makes dolls. Not just any dolls, but realistic, life-sized, fully articulated dolls that not only approach the uncanny valley, they pull out the picnic blanket and spend the day in the meadow.
But the new Loveable Dolls are "more than fuck dolls," says Krivicke, who displayed his creations in booths designed to look like the bedrooms and living rooms, to show how these silicon art pieces can fit into normal life. And, of course, you can have sex with them.
He says his silicon is softer than that used in the RealDoll dolls, and that the eyes are hand-painted. He's also branching out to bring fantasy to life, currently offering a Pixie doll with the pointed ears and enormous eyes of her species; sort of like a Gelfling from Jim Henson's 1982 classic film The Dark Crystal.
Given that the fantasy bookshelves have been overrun by vampire porn that makes Buffy look like she attends a convent school, could an Underworld doll be far behind?
Dirty Kitty
The Dirty Kitty stood out at AEE because in the sea of sexy, raunchy, erotic and kinky adults-only products, this pig-shaped PC could only be described as "cute." If Sanyo made a Hello Piggy Porn PC, it would look something like this.
A piggyback PC is a complete computer that plugs into another computer but runs independently. It's not just a disk drive - it has an operating system and you can install and run applications on it, just like a real computer. Which it is. Only small.
The Dirty Kitty runs Windows XP and a customized version of the Opera browser. Once you detach it, everything but the OS and the browser disappears, leaving no record of your shenanigans on either your main computer or the piggyback PC. Not only does this help you hide your digital tracks, it also protects your main computer from malicious code like viruses, spyware, and adware.
R-1
Newly arrived from Japan is the R-1 line of serious sex machinery, all powered by a motor that would not look out of place in an Industrial Light & Magic machine shop. The attachments range from a piston masturbation sleeve that also rotates ("A10 Cyclone") to a tiny rugby ball on a flexible snake handle ("Predator Wand") to a revolving vibrator ("Feel Mont Blanc") that can perform 50 different motion patterns.
Like the Rings of Middle Earth, all of the toys answer to one controller. The buttons aren't labeled with English text, ensuring a stimulating learning curve for American customers, and each toy interprets the signals according to its shape and function.
You won't find anything as cool as that at CES.
Regina Lynn is a columnist, blogger and author who specializes in the intersection of sex and technology. Find her online at ReginaLynn.com.
