So it turns out that Eddy, the sales guy at Lovense, really likes posting engineering process images and videos for Lovense toys.

For instance, here's a nice imgur gallery of prostate massager product they're working on, and then even more updates to the plug after a round of refactoring. He's also done breakdowns of the WeVibe 4 and Ina 2.

Or there's this tweet about why some toy motors suck:

A look inside #vibrators- a comparison of vibrating mechanisms. #WhySomeOfYourVibratorsSuck pic.twitter.com/OFDuRps0Qb

— Eddy (@LovenseSales) April 15, 2015

Or this instagram post showing off a prototype of a new men's toy:

Handsfree stroking toy

A video posted by @lovensetoys on Oct 18, 2015 at 8:06pm PDT

There's even development process movies!

Side View

A video posted by @lovensetoys on Feb 1, 2016 at 11:24pm PST

If you're into toy breakdowns and prototype explanations, I highly recommend following these accounts on the various services. Neat stuff!

Leap Day News Roundup Time!

• What Happened to the Crowdfunded Sex Tech Revolution? - Motherboard
  • Another great article from Lux, this time about the trials and tribulations of running crowdfunding for sex tech, then actually shipping once it's done.
• A First Hand Quest for the Future of Sex; Part 1 - Engadget
• A First Hand Quest for the Future of Sex; Part 2 - Engadget
• Dear First Generation Sex Robot - Engadget
  • Engadget has started a series of articles on the intersection of sex and technology called Computer Love, written by Christopher Trout. Nice to see a journalist go so far as to fuck themselves with teledildonic toys and describe the experience on a major tech blog! And also there's insightful critiques and what not too. The list above is just a few of my favorites, and there's more on the way.
• 7 High Design Sex Toys That Show Us The Future of Sex - Co.Design
  • Well, apparently sex toys are getting their own coffee table book, and this article is basically a slideshow from that. Not much new or interesting if you're already reading this site, but, hey, buttplug book!
• Sex Tech is Entering Virtual Reality in China - TechNode
  • First off: Adult IoT Products. ADULT IoT PRODUCTS. @INTERNETOFSHIT, ARE YOU HEARING THIS?
  • Anyways, unlike the crowdfunding issues listed above, apparently Chinese startups are having no problem getting funding for new adult products. It's interesting that they bring up the use of "big data" for toys in this article, seeing that gathering this data is somewhat difficult in the first place in the US.
  • Also, I just want to call out this sentence: "Chunshuitang is also seeking to develop a ‘love hotel’ chain, which will be packed with their smart sex toys and VR products.". So do you think Smart Love Hotel will be the subject of smarmy, badly written sci-fi or horror flick in the US first? Both is a valid answer.
• 5 ways technology will change love and sex in the future - Evening Standard
  • Um. They actually use nanomachine grey goo as an idea for sex toys. I mean, they don't use that term specifically, but come the fuck on. We all know what you're talking about. Otherwise it's stupid bullshit like "guybrators" ('cause you know guys haven't rubbed up against anything vibrating in the past. Why ever would that happen) and e-stim (which is older than I am).
• Sex Robots are Sexist - Mirror
  • What am I even fucking doing putting The Mirror on here. I'm sorry.

Ok stopping now before I post something from The Sun or Daily Mail. Sorry.

At first I thought the whole gTLD initiative was silly. Why do we need anything more than .com/.org/country codes/etc, right?

But now that I own buttplug.engineer, I am convinced gTLD is the best thing to happen to the internet ever.

If you're bored, I highly recommend doing a name registry search with buttplug. There's still a ton of great available options.

buttplug.bingo!

buttplug.ninja!

buttplug.dentist!

How can you go wrong?

First off, some meta-crowdfunding news. Adult Crowdfunding Site Offbeatr has closed indefinitely due to "corporate restructuring". I wrote a few years ago about the rather crazy requirements for running offbeatr campaigns, not sure if those had changed since.

Anyways, onto the live campaigns!

• Lioness Vibrator
  • 156% (US$78087 raised / US$50000 needed) in 15 days, 25 days left.
  • News/Thoughts: Accidentally called the campaign already finished last week, when it's still going strong and not even 50% done yet. I'm interested in what differentiates this from The Hum, which is another sensor-filled vibrator that has a successful crowdfunding campaign a year ago. No matter what, I'm happy to see more toys integrate biometrics sensors, even if the question of what to do with the data is dicey.

• VirtuaDolls
  • 82% (US$40822 raised / US$50000 needed) in 19 days, 21 days left.
  • News/Thoughts: Despite some negative press, the Virtuadolls campaign continues along, looking to be on their way to make their goal. Really, really interested to see if this even gets close to shipping.

• Blewit
  • 332% ($66491/$20000) in 35 days, 5 days left

• World's Most Realistic Affordable Sex Doll
  • 0% ($0/$20000) in 18 days, 22 days left

2 weeks in a row! I think I can officially call this a recurring feature now!

• Strokes of Genius - Local Couple Banks on Sex Industry Future with Digital Brothel - The Isthmus

  • I had originally planned on writing a full post about this but I don't think it's going to happen. So, the big points are:
    • WARREN SANDVICK, THE TELEDILDONICS PATENT HOLDER, IS DEAD. I had no idea until I read this article, but he died 2015-12-02. No idea whether this has any bearing on the lawsuit since the patent was handed to a shell company. Probably doesn't.
    • More sex companies trying to make a business out of the novint falcon as a sex toy, even if it is a horrible idea as a thrusting toy.
    • Vivian Cambridge (Of CITouch/Interactive Fleshlight fame) is still around and still ripping people off. I'm still wondering who set up this angry twitter account about them.

• Virtual Reality Sex - Pros and Cons from a Brothel.

  • I missed this during CES. Sheri's Ranch, a legal brothel in Nevada, made a blog post about the possible effects of sex tech and VR on their business. It contains employees who've been in the industry a long time dropping SERIOUS knowledge and is one of the best sex tech critiques I've read from anyone in quite a while. Lots of tech publication response articles) followed, most of which try to defend the tech side, or denigrate the viewpoints of the workers.

• High Tech Sex

  • THIS IS FROM 1993. I accidentally stumbled on this while looking at the Dutch wikipedia entry for teledildonics. It's just wonderful, containing great quotes from people like Lisa Palac of Future Sex Magazine:
    • Said Palac: "If it happens, I'll be the first to try it. But I think that putting all your eggs in the virtual-sex basket is the wrong move. If you have a crummy, disappointing, boring sex life, a machine isn't going to change it. There are so many questions about sex in our culture right now, without any software or hardware, data gloves or goggles. What's the guarantee that sex in cyberspace, whatever that might be, is going to be any better or some kind of utopia? What does it say about our sexual culture and where we're at that people want to have sex with machines?"

• 3 Trends in Sex Toys: What Your Dildo Will Look Like in 2020 - Alternet

  • Apparently my dildo will look like a bunch of sex toy manufacturers talking? 'cause there's not a lot of new or interesting ideas floated in here. Hell, RealTouch is out of business and there's been solar powered vibes for decades.

• Le nuove pratiche del sesso: facesitting e teledildonics - Il Giornale

  • Italian clickbait that defined facesitting and teledildonics. However, the article title made me giggle stupidly so here we are.

• The Future of Sex Tech is Already Here - The Daily Dot

  • Usual "list of products readers aren't likely aware of." article.

• This Sex Toy Just Made Long Distance Relationships a Whole Lot Easier - ATTN

  • Kiiroo.

• Scammers and Spammers - Inside Online Dating's Sex Bot Con Job - Rolling Stone

  • Interesting article on bots on dating websites. Apparently Adult Friend Finder is deploying teledildonics soon?

Enough for this week. Enjoy!