The March 2000 issue of Playboy writes that Vivid Interactive is about to release the "ultimate sex toy" - a neoprene cybersuit equipped with electronic sensors positioned near the chest, inner thighs, crotch and other erogenous zones. All to create a variety a sensual stimulations, with, grasshopper. The sensors are activated via a PC connection and DVD software and offers a feature where your libido can get booster shot from a partner over the Internet.
Vivid Interactive's Jim Monroe tells geneross.com that this concept, the brain child of Vivid's David James, has been getting major play in Time, on CNN and all the major networks.
"It's been on the drawing board for about a year, year and a half," says Monroe. "Even if we never make a dime off of it, the p.r.'s been more than worth it." Though Playboy indicated that the suit, with a suggested retail price of $170, would be available in the spring, Monroe said plans are on hold. "We need to figure out a way to get some type of indemnity deal where if anyone, God forbid, should have a fatality or a heart attack, we don't get sued," he said.
"The release date at the moment is contingent upon FCC approval," David James added. "One of the biggest problems we have with it, is, it's meant to work over the Internet. As you know the Internet is world-wide. In America we have 110 v. In Europe they have 220 v. But they also have different delivery systems - AC, DC, generated power etc. The problem is, say, if you had someone in the outback of Australia running his computer and he was wearing a pacemaker, and gets a little surge going through him, you could fry him. That's the problem we have at the present moment - trying to control the surge protection.
"In America we've got no problems. We could release it tomorrow," James added. "But because of the world-wide thing, we're trying to figure out how to control the surge in different countries with different power supplies."
G. Ross: "Maybe you come up with a 'serge' suit."
James [laughing]: "Funny you say that because the new suit put out by NASA is virtually what you just said. It's a wired suit similar to what we have, but it has a surge protection built in it. But this is only a minor delay we have at the present."
G. Ross: "I heard this is your brainchild."
James: "I got the idea watching a story on Christopher Reeve on a TV special. It showed how they treated quadraplegics with a muscle stimulant device. The concept is pretty easy, and the idea is to build a suit with sensors inside the suit which would react to different signals. It's pretty basic. The sensors give off heat, electrical shock or a massaging motion. Another reason why it came about is that our DVD technology is way ahead of the rest of the world. We were able to make a DVD program that would make this work. But, again, thinking a little further ahead, instead of just selling this suit and the DVD to make the suit work, we wanted to make it so that we could get some secondary business out of it. Therefore, I want to do it on a worldwide basis over the Internet so that customers are locked into going onto Vivid's website. We do that for a number of reasons, one, hopefully is that they stay on our website and buy memberships. The website can be used for updating and upgrading the suit.
"The original concept of the suit was, if the husband's away on business, his wife's at home, when he finishes the day's business, he can sit back in his hotel room and virtually make love to his wife. But, if you look further ahead, the biggest moneymaker out there is the phone sex business. Now we can end up with a guy wearing a suit who's switched on to our website where one of our ladies would be manipulating a keyboard, sending various signals to him in his suit. You can imagine what a goldmine that is. It's all part of the DVD technology."
