The best virtual reality experiences can come from every day human connections. It all boils down to a basic living desire to see, hear, and feel those around us, according to Justin Moravetz, CEO and Creative Director at ZeroTransform, Inc. His company is now on a mission to bring those peer-to-peer visual and tactile connections to the platform they’re building with BaDoinkVR – a virtual reality adult entertainment production company that offers paid subscription services that showcase both 180 and 360-degree immersive videos featuring motion tracking and binaural audio. At last year’s AVN’s (the adult industry’s Oscar equivalent) they were named “Best Virtual Reality Site.”

ViRo.Club will enable erotic performers to interact directly with users in VR, leveraging motion-capture and haptic device technologies
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There is little doubt that there is money to be made here, as it will be news to precisely nobody that porn is big business
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ViRo.Club – which is currently in closed beta and will become available to BaDoinkVR subscribers later in the year– will enable erotic performers to interact directly with users in VR, leveraging motion-capture (promising “down to the fingertips” real-time accuracy) and haptic device technologies. Users will also be able to customize virtual environments and avatars to create a more personalized experience.

There is little doubt that there is money to be made here, as it will be news to precisely nobody that porn is big business. Moravetz is positive about capitalizing on that, but also cautious about unrealistic expectations of sudden and dramatic growth.

“We are seeing a shift towards a higher adoption rate with VR, a higher demand for new content, and less intimidation on form factor. This means the install base is growing and so is the reach to regions across the globe. It’s difficult to gauge revenue in the early days of VR since most of the funding was made available by grants from companies like Oculus, Google, and the like. But next year should be a great indication of things to come.”

The platform supports a huge variety of teledildonics hardware
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The platform supports a huge variety of teledildonics hardware (see list below) but Moravetz confides that it was far from a smooth ride to get them all to play nicely, and that lack of developer support on devices is a major challenge they’re seeking to address going forward.

“We’ve reached out to many of these teams only to be told they don’t have native 3D engine support. Once we overcame that hurdle internally, it was difficult to get these devices to consistently work on most computers since they’re all a little different. We are actively reaching out to more hardware manufacturers and are continuing to broaden integration with more devices.”

We are actively reaching out to more hardware manufacturers and are continuing to broaden integration with more devices
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• Lovense (All products)
• Kiiroo (Onyx/Pearl 1, Onyx/Pearl 2, OhMiBod/Kiiroo Fuse, Kiiroo Titan, Pornhub Blowbot)
• Fleshlight Launch
• Erostek ET-312B Electrostim Unit
• MysteryVibe Crescendo
• WeVibe (All products)
• Vorze (Cyclone SA, Cyclone X10, UFO SA – US Distribution Website)
• LiBo/PiPiJing Whale (and possibly other products)
• Rez Trancevibrator
• Youcups Warrior 2
• Vibratissimo (All products)
• Magic Motion (All products)
• MK312-BT Electrostim Unit

VR is becoming more social and it won't be long before expression tracking becomes a natural feature
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“We believe that this is the next natural evolution of VR and entertainment. We’ve developed ways to capture attention at a human level and we know this because when we look into the eyes of a VR character, who then smiles; we smile back without giving it a single thought.  VR is becoming more social and it won’t be long before expression tracking becomes a natural feature. We already see this feature available in our smartphones. It’s only a matter of time before everyone can smile in VR.”

Creating those meaningful and engaging connections, even intimacy, is a challenge that many up-and-coming VR Social Networks are grappling with. It would be funny it fell to porn to crack that problem. Funny, but not exactly surprising, as it wouldn’t be the first time that the adult industry tipped the scales towards mass consumer adoption of an emerging technology. From VHS to the Internet, the rule seems to be that for it to get big, it first needs to get dirty. Human nature, I suppose.

From VHS to the Internet, the rule seems to be that for technology to get big, it first needs to get dirty
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This article originally appeared on VRScout

Adult Entertainment & Technology Collide In BaDoinkVR via @alicebonasio https://t.co/uxAzB7qf1U pic.twitter.com/0Ak4kt05PL

— VRScout (@VRScout) February 5, 2019

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies our VR Consultancy service offers comprehensive support in strategic deployment of Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post VR to Blow Your Mind appeared first on Tech Trends.

A little over a year ago, VR Bangers shocked (and horrified) the world with their unconventional approach to recording VR porn, surprising not only their competitors in the industry but also producers operating in the field of VR experiences. The firm presented their one-of-a-kind head rig – a device with high-tech microphones and top-notch cameras which looked a lot like a mannequin’s head but changed the game when capturing VR porn.

VRB Head Rig 2.0 is the new virtual reality helmet camera for male porn actors. It's not only an improved version of the old rig but also an entirely new approach to comfort on set
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The Head Rig was supposed to simplify the creation of VR porn movies, thus allowing all the professional porn actresses working with the studio to feel more comfortable and so enhancing the immersion for the viewer. Even though the initiative was successful and the Head Rig found a whole lot of applications VR Bangers have announced something new. It’s time to for an upgrade!

VR Bangers’ Head Rig 2.0

VRB Head Rig 2.0 is the new virtual reality helmet camera for male porn actors. It’s not only an improved version of the old rig but also an entirely new approach to comfort on set. Compared to the previous model this one can be actually worn by a male porn star, at the same time allowing the performer to keep in touch with everything that’s going on around him. The inner screens are capable of streaming the view around the actor back to him in real time and the footage caught by the rig’s cameras is up to 8K resolution.

“With our new head rig, it is finally possible for our female actresses to kiss our male models for real,” says Xander Jones, Producer at Virtual Reality Bangers. “Even though the old head rig was doing great, we had some issues with it and not all the professional porn stars liked it, that’s why we had to come up with something new, more sophisticated than before. Our female stars can now kiss our male models for real!”

With our new head rig, it is finally possible for our female actresses to kiss our male models for real
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Thanks to the new design every viewer of VR Bangers content can now feel like he is really being kissed by the girl of his dreams in a more realistic way. The device is equipped with as many as 7 virtual reality cameras, so nothing that is going on set will be missed. It also has two binaural sound microphones built in to better capture all those wild moans and groans.

“We have actually thought about everything this time!” said Boris Smirnoff, CTO, VR Bangers “The project has consumed a lot of the company’s financial resources, but we believe that it’s going to be worth it. We paid special attention to make sure that we upgraded the device in every sense of the word, starting with a new design, microphones, cameras, and even lenses with a 300° field of view. What’s more, we introduced a special stabilization system to prevent the camera from being too shaky – I don’t want to sound like I am bragging about it, but it feels like we have actually covered everything this time!”

Thanks to the new design every viewer of VR Bangers content will now feel like he is really being kissed by the girl of his dreams in a way more realistic way than ever before
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According to the producers, even though the old VR head rig was built to make the experience more immersive for actresses, female talents never felt comfortable kissing it because it was simply scary and unnatural to them. What’s more, while being under the old rig, hardly any male actor could maintain a proper erection as he had to hold his head right back and be looking at the ceiling all the time. Getting rid of these issues was a driving force in the creation of this newest helmet, model 2.0 deals with all of those problems.

Even though the old VR head rig was built to make the experience more immersive for actresses, female talents never felt comfortable kissing it because it was simply scary and unnatural to them
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“This is the first ever head rig of its kind,” enthused Daniel Abramovich, the CEO of Virtual Reality Bangers. “I think that everyone who liked our previous device will fall in love with the newest one – after all, it’s an enhanced version in every way. We are about to test it in our upcoming VR porn films and then start using it regularly. You should see its impact in our movies relatively soon. The patent is still pending though, so it may take a while.”

Tech Trends has tried and tested many VR porn solutions and previously observed that the most intimate moments watching content come when the actress is up close to your face and her breathy words and moans really cut through the technology and connect the sensitive, naughty parts of your brain directly to the person on the other side of the lens.

The most intimate moments watching VR porn come when the actress is up close to your face and her breathy words and moans really cut through the technology and connect the sensitive, naughty parts of your brain
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We all suspend our disbelief on a superficial level when watching TV but the real power of VR is truly evident when the often cumbersome viewing technology is ripped out of the equation and our emotions hooked directly into the experience at hand. With VR porn Tech Trends has found that this ‘magic moment’ only happens up close so this new helmet camera promises to give us all some super immersive knee trembling moments! Can’t wait

Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dep. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post New Sex Helmet Promises VR Intimacy appeared first on Tech Trends.

A look back at some of the most exciting moments & innovations Tech Trends covered in 2018!

Cryptocurrency

Crypto is crashing – or so the experts say –  but it is not going away, so Tech Trends was excited to welcome on board our very own FinTech wizard Richard Andrews who kicked off his soon to be regular series last month.

Is Cryptocurrency on the verge of going mainstream?

Image by MichaelWuensch from Pixabay

During the bull run of 2017/18, coins could pump 50% on little more than a tweet of a conference announcement or a trivial code release. The principles of decentralisation and innovation were king and governments, financial services and regulation of any kind the public enemy of this bright new decentralised future. But after the parabolic rise of 2017 and the sharp sell-off of 2018 investor sentiment has reversed dramatically in the hope that these same institutions can restore their fortunes.

Hopes of greater institutional participation hinge on the Bitcoin ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) allowing institutional investors to participate in the market without the risks of holding Bitcoin directly
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Hopes of greater institutional participation have largely hinged on the prospect of a Bitcoin ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) which would allow private and institutional investors to participate in the market without the risks of holding Bitcoin directly. A good comparison is the well-established GLD ETF that provides exposure to gold without holding it under the mattress. However, this approach has so far proved disappointing due to rejections and delays by the US Securities and Exchange Committee (SEC). Read his full article here.

Mixed Reality

HoloLens subscription service spurring immersive tech adoption

Since the HoloLens was first released almost three years ago, Microsoft has steadily been building partnerships and demonstrating an array of industry use cases across manufacturing, engineering, healthcare, education and many others.

Rather than place users in a fully computer-generated world, as virtual reality does, HoloLens allows them to put 3D digital models in the room alongside them. As the Windows-10-based product does not have wires or external cameras or require a phone or PC connection, users can walk around the objects they create and interact with them using gestures, gaze and voice. This tends to make it well suited for onsite industrial applications.

While many large companies have adopted mixed reality and HoloLens applications, the $3,000 price tag of the device has been perceived as a barrier for adoption among smaller players
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Yet while many large companies have adopted mixed reality and enthusiastically evangelized about the efficiency gains that they achieved with HoloLens applications, the $3,000 price tag of the device has been perceived as a barrier for adoption among smaller players, who understandably aren’t sure that the ROI would be justified in onboarding the technology at this relatively early stage. Read the full article here.

Health Tech

Epilepsy consortium believes technology could save the NHS £250 million a year

Today, up to one in 100 people in the UK are believed to suffer from epilepsy, leading to three per cent of all Accident and Emergency visits and a total of 1.3 million days in hospital a year. It’s a challenging condition to manage, particularly as existing medication only works for up to 70 per cent of sufferers. Of those who do not respond to medication, most are not suitable for invasive surgery, leaving many to continue to experience unpredictable and potentially life-threatening seizures. New research by Public Health England (PHE) has found a 70% rise in the number of deaths of epilepsy patients between 2001 and 2014. PHE said there was a need to improve the clinical management of patients and make improvements to their wider health by tackling smoking, alcohol intake and poor diet.

The programme provides patients with wearable technology that records vital health data to help clinicians build a tailored record of a patient’s condition and seizure patterns
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This is what myCareCentric Epilepsy consortium – funded by Innovate UK and comprised of Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the University of Kent, System C & Graphnet Care Alliance and Shearwater Systems – is hoping to do by equipping people with the ability to self-manage their condition. Running on Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure, the programme provides patients with wearable technology that records vital health data to help clinicians build a tailored record of a patient’s condition and seizure patterns. It has the potential to learn to classify seizures; to alert clinicians and carers in real-time so they can consult patients remotely, and provide essential lifestyle recommendations and drug prescriptions. Read the full article here.

A Tragic Loss to Science

Stephen Hawking taught us about about life, the universe, and everything

I once met Professor Stephen Hawking as he was coming out of the elevator at the John Lewis store in Cambridge (UK – The original one), where we both lived at the time. And although I’ll admit this might be far from the most interesting Stephen Hawking story out there, it’s still one of my favourites. Being in his presence was an incredible feeling. I felt ridiculously honoured to have bumped into him in this ordinary shop.

Now, after his death, I feel much the same way about having had the honour of sharing the same time-space with him. In an age of fake news, President Trump and imminent Brexit, he was our steadfast voice of reason. Right to the end, he advocated for the things he felt passionate about, such as defending the National Health Service against the likes of Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt who – with a level of misguided arrogance I can’t begin to comprehend – actually chose to argue with him (with entirely predictable results).

In an age of fake news, President Trump and imminent Brexit, Professor Stephen Hawking was our steadfast voice of reason
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And all this he achieved with wit, wisdom, and a wicked sense of humour, which endeared him to millions around the world. When combined with the inspiring way in which he defied an illness that should have killed him and transcended the disability which left him only able to move a few muscles on his face, he is indeed a formidably inspirational figure. Read the full article here.

Virtual Reality

PokerStars brings online poker to a truly immersive social VR experience

Tech Extremes

Ninja tech skills can come in handy even onboard an Antarctic research ship

A research trip around the Antarctic gave a Software Engineer Carles Pina i Estany a new perspective on how the very product he helped build was being used by scientists. Aboard a research vessel thousands of miles from shore and the nearest reliable Internet connection, these modern explorers routinely relied on Mendeley to do their work, even in subzero temperatures.

A research trip around the Antarctic gave a Software Engineer Carles Pina i Estany a new perspective on how the very product he helped build was being used by scientists
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The opportunity to take part in this unique expedition came when Carles’ partner, Jen Thomas, was invited to become Data Manager on a research trip led by the newly created Swiss Polar Institute, which has a mission to connect researchers active in polar or extreme environments, promotes public awareness of these environments, and facilitates access to research facilities in those extreme environments. As they were short of an IT person and Carles was already on a sabbatical from his work at Elsevier – during which he had already planned to travel around the world – he seized the opportunity to fulfil a longstanding ambition to take part in a polar expedition. Read the full article here.

Ted Talks with Zebra

Accessible design in the age of Industry 4.0

Earlier this month Tech Trends attended our first TEDSalon in New York! Presented by Zebra Technologies and TED the session theme was ‘The Next Wave’ and focused on the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is bringing a tsunami of change that will dramatically affect how we interact with and adapt to technology. The ways we choose to ride this wave will determine the shape of our future. Will we use this as an opportunity to solve our most pressing issues, or allow it to become a calamity that divides us? Hosted by TED’s Bryn Freedman, five speakers and one performer explored the tools and expertise we’ll harness to build the future

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is bringing a tsunami of change that will dramatically affect how we interact with and adapt to technology
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The evening included fascinating presentations from experts on the woeful state of America’s election systems and how technology can help, and how we need to change the way we learn if AI is part of the process. Zebra’s own design technologist James Morley-Smith took inspiration from how his disabled son Fintan learned piano starting with the black keys (the opposite of the traditional method) to guide his designs. In his work at Zebra, Morley-Smith designs for employees who are often in noisy, poorly lit industrial settings and clad in bulky protective gear. By following the black-keys tactic, he’s factoring in users’ limitations from the get-go, much like the idea of accessible product design championed by Microsoft at this year’s Build Conference. Read the full article here.

Sex Tech

Porn legend Ron Jeremy sees VR as the future of the adult industry 

Every 5 minutes, Pornhub transmits more data than the entire contents of the New York Public library’s 50 million books. Pornhub’s yearly review of trends reveals that in 2017 a total of 3,732 Petabytes of porn data was streamed, which makes for 7,101 GB per minutes and 118 GB per second.

In 2017 a total of 3,732 Petabytes of porn data was streamed, which makes for 7,101 GB per minutes and 118 GB per second
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And a man who significantly contributed to those gigantic volumes of traffic is Ron Jeremy, an AVN Hall of Famer with over 2,000 films under his belt. Jeremy is the Guinness Book of Records holder for Most Appearances in Adult Films and a big believer in VR Porn. So much so that he’s now put his money where his mouth is and launched RonJeremyVR, a premium service hosting VR films directed by the big man himself.

Every 5 minutes, Pornhub transmits more data than the entire contents of the New York Public library’s 50 million books
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So where are we in this new age of online VR thrills? According to the Pornhub Year in Review 2017 report:

“Virtual Reality Porn continues to gain in popularity, moving up 14 spots on the list from 2016. Cheerleaders came back with a bang, moving up 366 slots and into our top 20 searches of the year. VR devices were a popular holiday gift, and it seems that porn was one of the first things people wanted to try out with their new headsets. After the New Year, average daily views remained much higher than the pre-Christmas levels at around half a million per day.”

With the demand for streaming porn continuing to grow, this data suggests that Ron is indeed on to a real winner
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With the demand for streaming porn continuing to grow, this data suggests that Ron is indeed on to a real winner.  Read the full chat with Ron here.

Internet of Things

IoT and the connected home have yet to fulfil their promise

IFA this year was much like previous years, hundreds of companies screaming from the rooftops about minimally iterative products. A few more pixels, a bit bigger screen, a bit faster processor and everything a bit thinner, oh and crap Robots. I love tech and love my gadgets and can geek out with the best of them but I attended IFA this time looking for more meaningful innovation than a bit better camera on an $800 smartphone. I am happy to report that I found it, but not where you might expect.

A decade ago the invention of the smartphone changed our lives but truly new products like this are few and far between, so every year companies try to reinvent what we already have through minor upgrades and tweaks. We are stuck in a loop where the market is slowly evolving but no real innovation is going on, and the largest companies in the world are all guilty of this lack of effort to progress, so we must start looking off the beaten track for those that are truly working to innovate.

The largest companies in the world are all guilty of this lack of effort to progress so we must start looking off the beaten track for innovation
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Thought sustainably producing high-quality, smart and connected home products @Beko can democratise technology
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IoT and the connected home has been much discussed and I have seen some interesting concepts and even a few eyebrow-raising products but it is not yet in our homes, changing the way we live, and judging from the hundreds of pathetic, unimaginative and almost useless ‘innovative IoT products’ on display at IFA 2018, it’s not going to happen any time soon. But Turkish behemoth Beko, makers of reasonably priced kitchen appliances, held a press conference to announce their technology strategy and issued a white paper on the future of technology in the home and impressed me with their assessment of how new, innovative technologies in our kitchens can improve our lives and can do it affordably and in the not-too-distant future. Read the full article here.

Well, it’s been a very exciting year for technology, and we’re off to play with our gadgets, but be sure to check back with us right after Christmas as we boldly go where no one has gone before in 2019…

Merry Christmas from TECH TRENDS!

Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post A Year in Tech: 2018 Recap appeared first on Tech Trends.

You can now get sexy thrills as you track the progress of your cryptocurrency investment. What a world we live in…

Bitcoin is having a hell of a ride (yes, this post is going to be full of innuendos, get over it) and now adult entertainment webcam platform CamSoda is taking that to a whole new level with the launch of BitCast.

Bitcoin is having a hell of a ride
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This new feature brings an entirely different sort of titillation to investors by pairing an interactive sex toy with the performance of major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin, increasing and decreasing the frequency of vibration accordingly: If the value of the currency goes up, the vibrating increases; and if the value goes down, the vibrating decreases. In other words, as the value of your investment fluctuates all over the place, so will your… well, you get the gist.

BitCast brings an entirely different sort of titillation to investors by pairing an interactive sex toy with the performance of major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin
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Since the beginning of the year the aggregate market cap of all cryptocurrencies has increased by more than 3,000%
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2017 has seen the value of cryptocurrency – most notably BitCoin – soaring beyond most people’s wildest expectations. Since the beginning of the year the aggregate market cap of all cryptocurrencies combined has increased by more than 3,000%.

And even though many experts argue this is the biggest bubble of our lifetime – and that’s saying a lot considering all the bubbles we’ve seen – every day more people are lured into getting in on that action.

“What has so many people captivated, aside from the fact that virtual currencies are largely unregulated and fraught with risk, is the daily volatility – the stratospheric price rises followed by meteoric price drops. With people constantly tracking their cryptocurrency investments, we saw an opportunity to offer them simultaneous sexual pleasure derived exclusively from price fluctuations,” says Daryn Parker, VP, CamSoda. “Now, with Bitcast, our fans can hook up their favorite interactive toy and literally get pleasure from their investments. So, essentially, as the price goes up, so too do your orgasms.”

To use the new platform, users simply need to go to BitCast and click on the cryptocurrency icon they want to track, then, click “play” and follow the instructions to sync the interactive sex toys, which include a series of penile, vaginal and anal toys. They can then sit back and enjoy the ROI.

2017 has seen the value of cryptocurrency - most notably BitCoin – soaring beyond most people’s wildest expectations
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Since being founded in 2014 CamSoda made a name for itself in pushing innovative and often tongue-in-cheek tech. It was the first adult entertainment webcam platform leveraging “Mobile-First” and has had many forays into Virtual reality including the CamSoda House, an interactive VR experience that allows users to broadcast live adult entertainment directly to their headsets.

Users can sit back and enjoy the ROI
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This isn’t their first venture in interactive sex toys either. Previously, they launched on-demand marketplaces that offers users a catalog of simulated blowjobs and virtual cunnilingus from renowned webcam models and amateurs, which many dubbed the “iTunes of Blowjobs” and “iTunes of Cunnilingus,” respectively. It remains to be seen whether their foray into the cryptocurrency will prove as popular, but now I really have seen everything.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Does Bitcoin Turn You On? appeared first on Tech Trends.

Pornhub Launches AI-powered Model That Detects Over 10,000 Pornstars in Videos Using Computer Vision

With more than 10 million engaged members, over 5 million videos and 80 million visitors a day, Pornhub is well established as one of the leading adult video streaming sites out there. Its success is based not only on providing a reliable streaming service and broad range of content, but on hosting social functionalities in-site, such as messaging, photos, achievement badges and the opportunity to upload and share their own videos.

AI can help guide users directly to the content they came to the site for
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Together with Naughty America, the company was also one of the first ones in the adult industry to experiment with virtual reality and teledildonics, proving that it is keen to use technology to stay ahead of the game and provide new titillating experiences for its users. This is why they are now rolling out a new AI video analysis tool which promises to make their site easier to navigate and their content more accessible.

“We’re growing at an exponential pace. We currently receive 80M visitors each day and that number will only continue to climb. We had an antiquated system for tagging videos that just wasn’t cutting it anymore. Now, with the influx of technology, particularly regarding AI/computer vision, we’re able to update our system and implement a model that will significantly improve content tagging. At the end of the day, we want our users to access the content that they visit our site for – be it videos of Riley Reid or any pornstar for that matter. Our new model will help surface more specific search results, which, ultimately, will keep people coming back for more.” Corey Price VP Pornhub told us.

Our new model will help surface more specific search results
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The new AI model is designed to complement user tagging
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The new AI model is designed to complement the old fashioned user tagging of content and is fed several thousand videos, in addition to official photos of pornstars, to learn from. Then, based on what the AI has learned, it scans videos and returns the matching pornstars with a high confidence level. Pornhub users then validate what the AI model returns, either upvoting or downvoting the pornstar tags on the video, depending on its validity. Pornhub’s AI machine learning model uses this community validation mechanism to constantly get smarter.

“Our AI model will undoubtedly play a pivotal role moving forwards, especially considering that over 10,000 videos per day are added to the site. In fact, over the course of the past month alone, while we tested the model in beta, it was able to scan through 50,000 videos that have had pornstars added or removed on the video tags.” Corey explained

Over 10,000 videos per day are added to the Pornhub site
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Pornhub will scan the 5 million videos on its platform over the next year
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Within the next year, Pornhub plans on scanning all 5 million videos currently on its platform and will also start scanning for category and tag detection in the videos. So, for example, the AI model will know if a video is shot outside and will add it to the “Public” category. Or, it will know if there are blondes in a video and automatically add it to the “Blonde” category. Furthermore, the model will also be able to detect various sex positions and be able to properly tag them.

“Ultimately, we want to provide our fans with whatever it is they have a penchant for and our new AI model will be able to surface more accurate results for them. It’s all about continuously updating our platform to provide our fans with the latest in technology to make their experience on our platform as seamless as possible. The easier it is to navigate and access what they want, the happier they will be.” Corey concluded

The AI model will eventually be able to detect and tag sexual positions
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Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post The AI Position appeared first on Tech Trends.

Things are getting hot in the virtual world and the Adult industry is playing a big part in spurring adoption of the technology.

Talking about virtual reality is a bit like “dancing” about “architecture;” we lack the vocabulary to do it properly, and you have to experience it to understand. That quickly becomes evident when watching someone try it out for the first time. People are invariably blown away — they gasp, they laugh, and they usually can’t help reaching out their hands to touch things that aren’t really there.

“I’ve been introducing a lot of people to VR over the past few months, and that first experience is incredibly intense,” Ian Paul, Chief Information Officer of Naughty America, tells me as he sets up our demo in a San Francisco hotel room. “But when you’re throwing hardcore pornography at them on top of that, it can sometimes feel like a bit of sensory overload,” he laughs.

Paul never imagined he’d end up as a world ambassador for virtual reality porn. In his slick-yet-conservative business suit, he looks much more like an IBM executive, which is exactly what he was before being lured away to become Naughty America’s CIO six years ago.

The real test for any new technology is how quickly it gets picked up by the adult industry
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As porn embraces virtual reality, what does that mean for the rest of us?
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Then again, when I first started writing about VR I wasn’t exactly thinking about pornography either. Life sure takes some interesting turns, and sometimes all you can do is merrily plunge down the rabbit hole—which is how I found myself in that hotel room, wearing Samsung’s Gear VR headset and watching my first fully immersive virtual sex scene.

As the foreplay unfolded between two female protagonists, I effectively embodied one of them, since the stereoscopic camera gear had been mounted on her head. The other performer maintained constant eye contact with that camera to create the illusion of first-person engagement.

As the foreplay unfolded between two female protagonists, I effectively embodied one of them, since the stereoscopic camera gear had been mounted on her head
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Without giving too much of the plot away, the two girls are soon joined by a guy, and let’s just say that they all get really friendly. During the action my gaze was free to wander around the room; I could look at the floor, a picture on the wall or the shelf bulging with creative-looking dildos to my left. Or I could look down at the model’s body — which effectively stood in for my own—and take in what is being vigorously done to it. It’s all very close-up and personal.

Things get curiouser and curiouser as we switch to the male point of view. Staring at my newly acquired — and rather large — penis sent me into fits of freaked-out giggling. It’s very hard to convey just how weird—and real—that experience feels. Given that those making virtual reality tech have only started scratching the surface of what the technology can do, that’s both frightening and exciting.

It’s very hard to convey just how weird—and real—that experience feels
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Gender bender

Image courtesy Naughty America

Randy’s Roadstop is the series that Naughty America recently released to lay its claim to the growing adult VR space. As the name suggests, in these episodes you effectively become Randy (the main character). The female POV demo I tried earlier hasn’t been commercially released, but it’s part of the company’s efforts to nail the female market. “Nobody’s figured out how to crack that yet, because what stimulates men and women is entirely different,” says Paul.

The videos got mixed reactions, so they’re busy tweaking the format building feedback from women into the product. One example of how that works is how they decided to give the first-person characters a voice.

“It’s the first time we’ve experimented with the person that you ‘play’ actually speaking, because we thought it would break immersion,” Paul continues. “But with the female POV it felt problematic for some people to have the character silent; it can make you start wondering whether she’s enjoying herself.”

As I finish my demo I get the impression everyone did enjoy themselves, but I’m after a second opinion. So our photographer gets drafted in to try the female angle. As he looks down at himself with the goggles on, the first thing Tom blurts is that he “always wanted a pair of tits”. When the action intensifies he goes a bit silent though, and just as things get close to the ‘business end’ he suddenly tears off the gear. That’s a common reaction Paul sees from men in that position; they can’t quite take it in.

I know that, for myself and other men I talked to, it was really eye-opening. It makes you a bit more sensitive to the experience from a woman’s perspective. To have a man on you, actually entering you, it’s like, wow, this is intense, especially given the fact that the perspective makes the performers really tower over you.

This sense of experiencing something from someone else’s perspective is probably the most powerful thing about VR, and filmmakers are keen to explore that. Chris Milk, who was commissioned by the UN to make a project highlighting the plight of Syrian refugees, called it “the ultimate empathy machine” in his TED talk.

Researchers at Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab have conducted a variety of experiments that show how virtual reality can be used to make us more empathetic and directly change our attitudes toward disability, age, ethnicity and yes, gender. But while that’s all very interesting and noble, what stands out after seeing men instantly reassess their deeply ingrained attitudes toward sex after just a few minutes spent in VR is that it could make them much better lovers.

This sense of experiencing something from someone else’s perspective is probably the most powerful thing about VR
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Playing with yourself

Ian Paul (photo by Tom Atkinson)

VR can make people feel more empathy for the people involved, and also have a more considerate approach to sex in their private lives
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Librarian turned porn entrepreneur Ela Darling is a rising star in the VR adult industry, making what she describes as “Pretty Porn for Smart People.” She agrees that virtual reality can make people feel more empathy for the people involved, and also have a more considerate approach to sex in their private lives.

“Men might believe that half-hearted attempts to make a woman have an orgasm will lead her to the throes of ecstasy,” she tells me, “but if you live in a female body, you see all the reasons why it’s not authentically pleasing.”

Virtual reality can create incredibly intimate experiences, where some of the shock and awe of hardcore sex can feel overwhelming. Paul suspects this might lead to some toning down, at least at first. “But it also opens up opportunities to do much more interesting things that perhaps haven’t been possible before,” he says.

Some of those opportunities are in teledildonics, which are devices that can be programmed to react with content and provide stimuli at specific times. Naughty America and VirtualRealPorn are already working with companies like Kiiroo to incorporate smart toys into their films, and PornHub recently launched its TwerkingButt, which promises “the ultimate experience in online passion,” Pornhub Vice President Corey Price told me, by combining a VR headset and a device that “sensually gyrates to the motion of videos.”

Yet this isn’t just about plugging a vibrator into your smartphone.

Advanced teledildonics will make the virtual feel a whole lot more real, and technology is advancing quickly, according to Nonny de la Peña, who has the funny honor of being known as the “Godmother of VR” . She earned the nickname at Sundance last year when, during an interview, she was continuously interrupted by various people who had pieces in the show paying their respect and telling her how she had got them hooked on the medium. The Endgadget reporter noted the Corleone-like vibe and coined the phrase, which stuck.

“We’re already getting into second generation models, but there will be countless devices ranging from game controllers to haptic suits that track your entire body in a virtual environment, so I think you’ll see pretty much anything you can imagine becoming productized over the next few years,“ she says.

Darling is also excited about the possibilities: “The idea of being able to touch a device in my bedroom and stimulate the sexual senses of someone across the world is thrilling to me, especially if I can touch one device at home and reach thousands of viewers all experiencing a simulation of my touch at the same time. I could jerk off thousands of guys with one stroke! That’s incredible,” she laughs.

In the future these devices will probably sense your physical data, such as heart-rate or the direction of your gaze, and adapt accordingly to personalize and optimize that experience, Paul predicts.

Virtual reality can create incredibly intimate experiences, where some of the shock and awe of hardcore sex can feel overwhelming
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Imagine being in a virtual room with many different characters/avatars, and all you need to do is look at each one before the device you’re wearing determines, based on your physical reaction, which one turns you on the most. Then that’s the one that walks towards you. It might seem like science fiction, but although we’re not quite there yet, it wouldn’t require that much of a leap in technology to make that sort of experience entirely possible.

I think as a society we need to accept that people not only look at this content, but that it’s a valid way to explore your sexuality
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In order to do that, the system would need to collect data about your likes and dislikes, perhaps building an adult version of the predictive search and recommendations systems used by companies like Netflix and Google. If systems were able to collect granular data about what you like and adapt those experiences to suit you, it could be incredibly powerful, but collecting that kind of data brings its own problematic issues.

Paul believes that we first need to collectively decide whether it’s OK to consume pornography. “I think as a society we need to accept that people not only look at this content, but that it’s a valid way to explore your sexuality, and that it’s not a problem to look at something and enjoy it in a virtual sense,” he says.

This would be particularly empowering for women, he believes, many of whom still feel pornography is taboo. “We know that about 30% of women watch pornography, but very few will buy it,” Paul says. “So the conundrum is: how do you monetize? It’s not an economic issue at all, it’s more a psychological barrier, where the act of buying is adding friction so they’re less likely to consume that content.

“With this level of intimacy, aspects like storyline become much more important,” he continues. “Subtle things, like how close someone is standing to you, start to make a big difference. Where with the Internet we’ve seen a rise in amateur porn, I believe VR will favor professional production values such as camera placing, lighting and scripting. I think there will also be a space for female filmmakers to produce more artistic and thoughtful content that will appeal to both men and women.”

About 30% of women watch pornography, but very few will buy it
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“People make lots of false assumptions about what women want in porn,” adds Darling. “Some believe that porn for women must be romantic and story-driven with less hardcore imagery. I think that’s false. Women’s taste in porn is as diverse as that of men. The difference is that women want porn that is believable and made well, so production quality is important, as are natural, genuine orgasms. Women know what makes a woman feel good and what doesn’t.”

Coming together

Image courtesy AliceX

Monetizing VR is a challenge that the major players have yet to figure out.
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That also brings in the possibility of real social interactions mediated through virtual reality, which is something that AliceX is betting on. It pairs up users with live webcam models so that you interact directly with them on a pay-per-minute basis. Their CEO, Fabian Grey, tells me that users have been pleased with the service so far: “VR users are three times more likely to come back within the next couple of days and are spending four times more coins than non VR users,” he says.

Yet trying out AliceX brought home just how easy it is to be heavy-handed with the medium, as the experience can feel intimidating rather than pleasurable. Perhaps until people get a little more used to it, Adult VR might lend itself more to a voyeuristic experience rather than direct interaction. “Right now VR is very singular,” agrees Corey Price from Pornhub. “But when the technology advances I think it will become a much more social experience, and when it gets there, completely immersive environments in VR will be huge.”

Porn is big business of course, but monetizing VR is a challenge that the major players have yet to figure out. Pornhub partnered with BaDoink to offer free content (giving away 10,000 VR headsets to mark the occasion) and started serving adverts against those videos in its proprietary player. “These are adverts for mainstream companies like Amazon and Dell, and I wonder if they’re aware of that,” Paul muses. The idea of adverts intruding in such an immersive experience does seem a bit odd, like the digital equivalent of someone barging into your bedroom during an intimate moment, tapping you on the shoulder and asking you whether you might like to buy this vacuum all your friends seem to like.

There’s no medium that hasn’t made porn a big thing, because it’s what humans want to do
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That said, the size of the opportunity is staggering. “VR is growing faster than any format we’ve ever tracked,” says Paul. “Mobile had a fairly steep adoption curve from around 2006 onwards, but this is much steeper. We’re seeing exponential growth.” Based on Gaming Industry predictions that project 2.5 billion VR headsets being sold by 2022 he estimates — given the demographic involved in this uptake — that by the end of the year 10 to 20 million users will be watching adult content in VR.

“It’s no longer a nascent idea,” agrees Price. “We’re going to start seeing a lot more adult content, in every niche style, available in VR.”

What’s driving that growth is the fact that so many industries are backing the new technology—not only mobile, but major technology players like Google and Facebook, as well as the games industry. It’s coming from all sides, and Paul reckons that we will see a tipping point with the rollout of 5G speeds for mobile networks (expected no sooner than 2020, according to CNET), which will allow people to stream high-resolution VR content to their devices without having to download large files.

Millions of VR headsets are expected to be sold this year — an incredible 200 million by 2020 — so the experience will soon cease to be such a novelty. Quality content for those platforms, however, is still relatively thin on the ground, and it remains to be seen how big a chunk of the market the adult industry will claim for its own.

Like a VRgin: How the porn industry is taking over virtual reality https://t.co/ojD09ZAL8Z pic.twitter.com/tRkvAb2sWq

— Playboy (@Playboy) July 2, 2016

Oculus VR Founder Palmer Luckey has gone back and forth on adult VR content. Paul is actually sympathetic to Oculus’s position. “You don’t want people to start thinking of it as a masturbation assisting tool, that’s not good for business. If the technology is really going to take off you need multiple use cases that integrate into our day-to-day lives. So we need gaming, we need social sharing, and we also need pornography. It’s all part of the human experience,” he says.

Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab, agrees that it’s easy for some types of content to quickly become dominant on certain platforms, and then go on to define them. His company, which for the past 13 years has successfully run the online virtual world Second Life, is keen not to let that happen with its virtual reality platform Project Sansar, which is due to launch in the summer.

“I’m anti-censorship, pro-freedom, we just have to figure out a way to best compartmentalize it, and play it carefully. There’s no doubt that will be one aspect of it though. There’s no medium that hasn’t made this a big thing, because it’s what humans want to do. They’ll shape any medium to suit that purpose, from writing, to painting to VR. They will find their way, it’s just human nature,” concludes Altberg.

Better than the real thing

Image courtesy Naughty America

I’m very interested in how the technology could help you learn to become a better lover with your partner in real life, almost like a personal trainer
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Professor Jeremy Bailenson agrees. As the founding director of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, he is one of the world’s leading authorities on VR, and in his book Infinite Reality he points out that “Throughout history, virtual depictions of attractive people — whether in stories, painting, sculpture, audio, etc. have always been good business for their creators.”

For over a decade Bailenson has conducted experiments that test how humans use these virtual environments and how this affects their behavior, both online and offline. Many of those experiments were done in Second Life, including one where 80 students monitored the frequency of sexual encounters on the platform, which was described as “startlingly high.”

“For a lot of people, Second Life has been a very useful way to explore their own identity,” explains Altberg. “I have this shell in the physical world, but a lot of people are not comfortable with it, so in the virtual space you have an opportunity to explore another side of yourself, which could turn out to be the real side. I know of many people who discovered themselves through that process and helped them come around to who they are in the physical world.”

That begs the question: will virtual sex ever be better than the real thing? If we have technology that’s able to anticipate our every desire and stimulate us accordingly at our convenience, will we still have the desire and patience to interact with real people?

“I’m very interested in how the technology could help you learn to become a better lover with your partner in real life, almost like a personal trainer,” muses Paul. But he thinks they’re very different propositions that will remain separate for the time being.

Grey, AliceX CEO, agrees that the human touch and experiences that stimulate all your senses will be hard to replicate. But “people will be able to get virtual experiences that are either not possible in real life or very hard to attain,” he predicts.

Bailenson paints a much more dystopian picture. In a scenario that mixes Black Mirror and Weird Science, he describes a future where we’d be able to reconstruct someone’s personality based on the wealth of information collected through their digital interactions over the course of a lifetime spent online. “When you combine advances in teledildonics with the idea that you might be able to, in future, ‘archive’ certain people and animate those models with devices designed for sexual pleasure, the potential for addiction becomes scary,” he says.

He paraphrases comedian and social commentator Dennis Miller in saying that “the day a teenage boy can buy an avatar that looks like a supermodel for $19.95, virtual reality is going to make crack look like a cup of weak, instant, decaffeinated coffee.”

Darling believes we’ll get there eventually. First, however, we have to get artificial intelligence that passes the Turing Test (where you effectively cannot tell whether you’re interacting with a person or a machine). “I don’t see that happening in the foreseeable future, but I hope I live to see the day it comes,” She says, perhaps not even realizing how it sounds.

Originally published on Playboy

How the porn industry is taking over virtual reality! by @alicebonasio, photog @r3digital https://t.co/N7av6rjFAp pic.twitter.com/6JgReuAsVo

— Mike Rougeau (@RogueCheddar) June 29, 2016

Tech Trends’  Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

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