The Future Of Adult By Darren Roberts
The place where sex and technology blend together perfectly.

Posts Tagged ‘adult_business’

Soft robotics is a quickly emerging field that takes a lot of inspiration from marine creatures like squids and starfish. A light-controlled hydrogel was recently developed that could be used for control of these new robotic devices, but now researchers at North Carolina State University are taking the development of soft robotic devices to a new level with electrically-charged hydrogels.

The “ionoprinting” technique, as the team has dubbed it, uses a copper electrode to inject positively-charged copper ions into a hydrogel material (a highly absorbent polymer material that is nearly 99.9 percent water). The copper ions bond with negatively charged ions n the hydrogel’s polymer network, creating a more robust and mechanically stiffer structure.

Applying an electrical current then causes the hydrogel to flex. Although electrical fields have been used to actuate hydrogel materials before, this is the first time that electromechanically active electrodes have been used to drive the motion. Also, this is the first time that the binding of ions has been used to create a more rigid hydrogel network in this way.

As well as being able to fold hydrogels significant distances within seconds, the technology allows the application of modest voltages to locally tune the mechanical properties of hydrogels to create physically-reinforcing exoskeletons. The copper ions can be injected into specific sections of the hydrogel material for more precise movement, with the resulting pattern of ions stable in water for a period of months. The more ions that are injected, the greater the hydrogel’s bending capabilities.

“We are currently planning to use this technique to develop motile, biologically compatible microdevices,” says Dr. Orlin Velev, INVISTA Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NC State.

This gives the technique potential in not only soft robotics, but also many other biomedical applications. Artificial muscles, enviro-intelligent sensors, actuators, biomimetic microbots, micropatterned thin films, cell scaffolds and drug-delivery are just some of the other potential applications for the technology according to the researchers.

The team’s paper is published in the journal Nature Communications.

The video below shows the ionoprinting process and hydrogels in action.

Source: North Carolina State University

 

Cover illustration by Natalie Shau for Darren Roberts

Sexy Cover Design for The Unsexpected Story

The Unsexpected Story is now available in all digital formats including iBooks, Nook and Kindle. If you haven’t yet purchased your own copy now is the time to do so, Amazon is now offering the Kindle Edition for only $7.95!!

The Unsexpected Story is one of very few books written about the business side of the adult entertainment industry and features in-depth interviews with Peter Acworth, Joanna Angel, Greg Clayman, Scott Coffman, Susan Colvin, jessica drake, Larry Flynt, Teresa Flynt, Steve Hirsch, Ethan Imboden, Sunny Leone, Christian Mann, Nick Manning, Steve Orenstein, Theo Sapoutzis, Lou Sirkin, John Stagliano, Bobbi Starr, Allison Vivas and many, many more.

Engaging, conversational, and smart, The Unsexpected Story goes where other industry tell-alls don’t, tracing the economic and technological lifespan of the vast adult entertainment industry through the personal experiences of the individuals who have made a lasting impression on this forever green, multi-billion dollar empire.

It was just another day in the wonderful world of Google when they announced Glass—a pair of sleek eyewear that could change the world.  Texting, video chat, instant access to Google and all of its services, their preview video shows its users partaking in everything from virtually sharing a birthday experience to flinging themselves around on a trapeze.  Their preview did not, however, explore the possibilities that open up for the adult entertainment industry.

Picture this:  you’re at home watching the latest Joanna Angel release on DVD.  You hit the orgy scene and a particular tattooed beauty catches your eye.  Within seconds, you’ve shifted from the standard view to a point-of-view shot recorded by the Glass eyewear her partner had on.  While recording, he looks up at a pink-haired porn star, and you shift again, bouncing around the orgy’s performers.

But it’s not about just changing angles on professional shoots. Glass has infinitely expanded the capabilities and range of point-of-view amateur porn.  No more phones or handheld video cameras handicapping the participants –both hands are now in use—which will create a range of more in depth and creative motion that the amateur industry has been unable to achieve until this point.

Upskirting, recording sex in public, erotic video chat… we want to know what will you do with Glass?

Last Saturday, the Sundance Film Festival took a delightful bruising when it debuted Christina Voros’ (127 Hours, The Broken Tower) documentary, Kink.  This film explores the daily ins and outs of premiere BDSM porn studio Kink.com, a subject that Kink’s producer, James Franco (Spider-man, Pineapple Express), found fascinating while touring the 200,000 square foot San Francisco studio during a shoot for another project, About Cherry.

Founded in 1997 by Columbia University alumni Peter Acworth, Kink.com is the alternative pornography site, its wide umbrella encompassing sites such as FuckingMachines.com, Hogtied.com, and PublicDisgrace.com as well as hitting the alternative gay male demographic with MenOnEdge.com and BoundGods.com.

Acworth has devoted his adult life to bringing alternative pornography to the mainstream, not just to fill an already established need, but to help educate those still exploring their sexuality.  Constantly expanding and exploring new directions, the Kink.com brand he created is an excellent representative of the alternative adult industry not only due to its longevity and integrity, but also due to its vision and sense of community.

Bringing the talents of Franco and Voros together to create a film about such an industry giant might finally allow the rest of the world to banish their illusions of not just the alternative porn community, but the adult industry in general.  We have high hopes that this film, as well as the two other adult industry-related films showing at Sundance, Leatherbar and Lovelace, will topple some of the longstanding walls between mainstream viewers and filmmakers and the adult industry.

Read the Sundance Review of Kink here

Learn more about Kink.com and Peter Acworth in The Unsexpected Story

 

Ethan Imboden

After a chance meeting with a professor of industrial design while in Europe, Imboden set a new goal: to work in the world of design.  He returned to America and began searching for local companies, eventually landing an interview with Portland-based firm, Ziba.  While he did not get the job, he did receive—and follow— the interviewer’s advice to go back to school and earn a degree in design.  Pratt Institute in New York quickly became his alma mater and he graduated with his Masters in Industrial Design, which opened the doors previously closed to him.

After landing jobs with top design firms like Arnell Group, Ecco Design, FrogDesign, and Alchemy Labs and consulting with Ford, Motorola, Nike, and others, Imboden decided to create his own design firm: Plink.  Plink enabled him to gather together the best designers he had worked with and take on projects previously denied to him, but while creating his firm, he came to realize that one set of products had not received the attention it needed from the world of design: sex toys.

In 2004, Jimmyjane was brought to life: a company of innovators bringing safe, elegant, and effective sex toys to the adult market.  From the tiny Little Something—the world’s first vibrator to have a replaceable motor— to the popular waterproof and rechargeable FORM 6, Jimmyjane’s products are not only stunning, but quickly flooding the mainstream market, appearing in luxury retailers such as Maxfield, Fred Segal, Selfridges, and others around the globe, bringing the world of sex toys into an entirely new, and respectable, light. Ethan’s story is also featured in The Unsexpected Story.


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