Virtual Reality Sex and Teledildonics

The Internet today consists mainly of words, images and sounds, but what about web technologies that engage the senses of smell, taste and touch? Joyce Slaton reports on cutting-edge technological research and finds the prospects less far-fetched than one might think. But she also finds online porn entrepreneurs, once in the forefront of exploiting new web technologies, surprisingly uninterested this time around.
San Francisco Gate (Oct 2000)

Richard Jaccoma looks at cutting-edge technological research that may allow virtual reality sex, using a "two-way neural transmitter" to record electronic signals from the nervous system and later replay those signals into the brain. A research team headed by British scientist Kevin Warwick is trying to develop the technology. Warwick states, "There are electrical signals flying around your body at such times. If you play back the same signals, our best guess is that you'll get something of the original sensations."
The Position (Nov 2000)

Michelle Delio looks at the latest silly Japanese pop culture phenomenon: dating female bots by email through a service called Love By Mail, which is run by the same company that spawned the Tamagotchi. "I dated Yumi for awhile, and I have to confess I became very attached to her. It was hard sometimes to remember that Yumi wasn't real. She would yell at me and ignore me the exact same way as all my other girlfriends have."
Wired News (Feb 2000)

Marisa Kakoulas looks at the technology of teledildonics, a longtime futurist fantasy currently into the vaporware stage.
disinformation (Mar 2000)

Andrea Nemerson looks at the current state of sex technology, the failed futuristic fantasies of cyberdildonics, and the strange faith that technology can solve any sexual problem.
San Francisco Bay Guardian (May 2001)

The US Navy is developing a vest embedded with tactile stimulators in order to help pilots overcome spatial disorientation in flight. But as Wired reports, "It's not only lauded as a savior for pilots, but also as the next big thing in the video game industry and the latest Internet sex toy." The article quotes one Navy captain: "You could also use it (the vest) to stimulate a person from their nose to their toes over the Internet -- or to stimulate a number of people simultaneously."
Wired (Jun 2001)

Weird sexual futurism from "one of Britain's top futurologists." Ian Pearson, who works for BTexact Technologies (part of British Telecom, the company that claims to have patented the hyperlink), has just published a timeline of 500 predictions for the next thirty years. Among other things, Pearson predicts that the Orgasmatron, the artificial sexual pleasure device dreamed up for Woody Allen's film Sleeper, will become a reality by 2012.
Yahoo (Feb 2002)