Alas, badoink is gone - fun while it lasted - but the great news is that I'm now writing for the fabulous FutureOf Sex ... and my very first piece, part one of a series called The Ten Greatest Sexual Innovations to Come is live!
Just click here and read The Future of Sexual Sensing: Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Neurostimulation!
As the old saying goes: the only constant is change—and the last few years have certainly seen a lot of it. So many changes, in fact, that it’s hard to think of any aspect of human society that hasn’t been touched by technological innovation over the last decade or so.
Books became ebooks, the Internet went from novelty to essential, electric and hybrid vehicles have become ubiquitous, gay marriage changed from “don’t talk about it” to “no big deal” (at least in some countries), and 3D printers left the prototype stage to become at-home appliances—just to hit some highlights.
But the greatest changes are right around the corner. Many of these innovations will occur in one of our favorite areas: sex.
Part one of our three-part tour into future sex developments is this speculation on sensory tech: how our seeing—and feeling—will be more than believing. These incredible sensory advances will be introduced to us via three innovative technologies.
Innovation One: Virtual Reality
Despite some initial clumsy attempts, virtual reality promises to become a societal game changer. Like many huge innovations, the basic idea of virtual reality is essentially simple: an artificial world accessed by miniature monitors over the eyes. These, coupled with motion sensors, means when you turn your head, the view through those monitors changes as well.
Where the game changing comes in is two pronged. The first is that VR promises a level of total immersion that we have never experienced before. With a VR headset—like the popular Oculus Rift—you’ll feel like you’re actually in whatever artificial world you’re visiting. Right now all we’re missing to complete this total immersion is haptics—touch technology, but that’s right around the corner.
The other prong is part of what drove the ebook revolution in publishing: privacy. With a VR set, no one will know where you are but you.
With VR you can visit—or create—any erotic world of your choosing in privacy. There is, literally, nothing you could not see nor do in a synthetic reality. As the tech gets better and better, soon the line between “real” reality and a virtual experience will get thinner and thinner.
Gazing into my—albeit cracked—crystal ball, it’s not too difficult to envision a few years from now. With VR we’ll not just be able to see films, but be parts of them. Interactivity will mean that entertainment, erotic or otherwise, will be multi-dimensional and totally immersive.
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