Honeydolls: The Reactive Love Doll from Japan

Move over Real Doll–there’s a new sex doll in town, and she’s from Japan!

Honeydolls are the first reactive love dolls that come with sound— sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun. The Honeydoll has sensors in her breasts with adjustable sensitivity, and she moans when her specially designed silicone is squeezed.

And that’s not all folks– you can choose her voice, too! The voice module is accompanied by an SD card, which stores 4 kinds of voice files. Or you can store your own voice file you on the SD card, or even play Mp3s–how versatile!

But wait, there’s more! Honeydolls have beautiful faces with closed mouths, but they’re also built for oral sex. Their faces are specially designed with added elasticity and resilience, so the doll doesn’t suffer from the dreaded O mouth of substandard sex dolls.

Ugh, I’m simultaneously fascinated and disturbed. The website states that the self-imposed mission of Honeydolls is to balance beauty, reality–and still offer the durability expected for expensive dolls, along with the safety necessary for a doll built for intimate contact.

Weighing in at only 64 pounds and just over 5 feet tall, these dolls are available fully-loaded with “Honeyflavor” for about $7000. And yes, they ship to the US.

Visit the Honeydolls website for more info.

More on Love and Sex with Robots

David Levy continues to titillate the media and grab headlines with his book Love and Sex With Robots.

Levy predicts that sex with robots will be possible in the next five years, and that in the near future there will be a demand for androids with personality programming sophisticated enough for people to develop real relationships with them and eventually fall in love.

But some experts argue that Levy’s ideas are far-fetched. Frederic Kaplan, who programmed Aibo’s robo-brain, wonders whether we even want robots made in our own image. “Human-machine interactions will be interesting in their own right, not as ‘simulation’ of human relations.”

What Kaplan doesn’t realize is that there will plenty of demand for both kinds for robots.

A company in Japan, Axis, has already produced the world’s first rudimentary sexbot called Honeydolls–check out my investigation of their uncanny valleys here.

Meanwhile in the US, the Real Doll is proving to be quite popular, as well as the Cyborgasmatrix dolls.

New York-based sexologist Yvonne K. Fulbright acknowledges that sexbots will probably find a niche market, especially with men seeking to fulfill fantasies their flesh-and-blood partners might be refusing. “But there will be a real stigma attached to sex robots. People are still going to feel like losers if that is their last resort,” she said.

I’ve said before that there will be a definite stigma attached to having sex with robots, but that won’t keep certain lonelyhearts from falling in love with their robot-mates. If you want proof, check out the pitiable lives of these Real Doll owners in the documentary Guys and Dolls.

Keeping Robot Sex in the News

David Levy, author of Love and Sex with Robots, was a guest on The Colbert Report last Friday. The interview was a bit awkward because while Levy is brilliant in print–he’s not quite ready for Colbert’s brand of humor. But the interview was very informative, and at least he’s keeping robot sex in the news.

read more | digg story

Visions from Within the Mechanism

My good friend Jim gave me a copy of Visions from Within the Mechanism: The Industrial Surrealism of Jeffrey Scott (1019) for Xmas, and since then I’ve become a big fan of Jeffrey Scott‘s weird and wonderful photographic manipulations. His work is both sublime and disturbing, and it’s not all robot related– there’s some great siamese twin/gothic imagery and just plain surreal stuff too. The factory website has a great sampling, but the best pics are in the book.
[Factory 1019 Portfolios]

Synthetic Skin That Feels

Pentagon-backed researchers want to create prosthetics that feel and act like real limbs– so they’re creating patches of synthetic skin that provide direct feedback to the wearer’s brain.

“With this technology, the artificial limb will come much closer to its human counterpart,” Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher and Darpa liaison Art Clemons tells IEEE Spectrum.

The new artificial skin will incorporate more than 80 sensors and will cover metallic prosthesis, leading to a more natural-looking bionic appendage. The skin—a rubbery polymer called polyimide that has been infused with tiny carbon nanotubes—is flexible, stretchable, lightweight, and tough. Initially designed for airplane pressure sensors, the polymer is durable, resistant to high temperatures, and piezoelectric.

DARPA’s Revolutionizing Prosthetics program aims to build a strong, lightweight mechanical arm that can touch and feel, as well as send signals respond and respond to direct brain control by 2010.

[Wired]

World’s First “Bionic Man” – video powered by Metacafe

Sexy New Robot Girl in European Commercial

In a campaign to rebrand a European electronics store called Saturn, New York based production company 1st Ave Machine created a new ad featuring the “perfect hybrid of modern machine and beautiful woman.” The spot was conceived by director Arvind Palep, and he says “We were presented with the challenge of creating a refreshing take on a sexy, female robot. Every one has seen the transparent, plastic-looking, mechanical, nuts-and-bolts robot. We wanted to look into the future to take the concept to the next level.”

Watch the ad at 1st Ave Machine.
Warning: Features some gorgeous robotic nudity.

From Digital Arts Online.

Heineken Robot Ads

It’s time to give a shout out to the coolest robot girl on tv right now– and no, I don’t mean the NBC’s Bionic Woman, I mean the Heineken robot girl.

And if she whet your appetite for robots, here’s another Heineken spot featuring four BREAKDANCING robots:

Sex with a robot, sure…but marriage?

AI researcher David Levy is predicting that robots specifically built for sexual intercourse will be available within the next five years– and also says that the right to marry a robot isn’t far away, although the article admits the implications of this would be a “mixed bag” for humanity.

Levy is currently writing a paper on the ethical treatment of robots and says, “the ethical issues on how to treat [robots] are something we’ll have to consider very seriously, and they’re very complicated issues.

The Nymph has been seriously considering these issues for a long time– and no matter how close the technology may be to becoming a reality, public acceptance is still a long way away. At least in this country.

From MSNBC.com via Live Science

Two Robotic Thumbs Down for the new Bionic Woman

ITEM!: Now you can own an AI head in a crystal ball for $75,000

At $75,000, I have to admit this guy’s just a little bit out of my price range (I’m the kind of girl that bought I-Cybie instead of Aibo). Neiman Marcus is selling a robotic Swami head that can recognize faces and carry on conversations. The Swami has an impressive character engine that runs off a PC (which I assume you need to hide behind a red curtain to maintain the illusion), and his head has more than 30 robotic micro motors and microcamera eyes. No word on who is responsible for this creation, but I’m assuming it’s a Hanson Robotics special.

via Techdigest.tv

Robotwins — Zou Ren Ti I & II

The Xi’An Chaoren Scupture Research Institute’s founder Zou Ren Ti has created Zou II, an android copy of himself. The two of them sat together on stage at Wired’s Nextfest last month, and Zou remained still enough on stage that a lot of bystanders weren’t sure which of them was “real.” Only Zou II’s face moved, and it was startling when he’d finally blink and turn his head. The best interaction I saw between the two of them was when Zou cleaned off his robo-doppelganger’s glasses and stored them in his pocket.

The resemblance between Zou I & II was uncanny, but it was a little bit like getting a Gobot when you want a Transformer…I really want to meet Hiroshi Ishiguro’s Geminoid twin. The Geminoid’s physical resemblance to his creator isn’t as strong, but then again Geminoid is also more fully animated and capable of telecommunication– Ishiguro intended for his Geminoid to teach his classes when he didn’t feel like going into the office.

Joey Rockstar, a Humankind robot from Hanson Robotics

It was too loud in the auditorium of Nextfest last month for Joey Rockstar to engage in conversation, but I had the opportunity to meet and interact with him. Joey’s face was very expressive, but his head was stuck on top of a rudimentary body that was borrowed for the show. I suppose the Hanson guys thought that a disembodied head mght scare the kids. Joey’s face kind of resembles an overly excited Matthew McConnaughey.