Tuesday Tasting: Vibrators, Bots and Brushes

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Each week, Ariel Waldman serves a tasting of the latest in sex and tech.

gPod Vibrates To Your Voice

Voice activated and vibrating, the gPod makes you giddy to gyrate. The mobile-friendly moan-maker is apparently "designed to respond automatically to sounds picked up by an accompanying handset, which can plug into anything from a telephone to a music player to a television." You know, like the miFlower gadget that came out last year, minus the rave dance of reactions. The dildo will dance, however, operating on the same sound waves as voice. At $243 a "pop", the device debuted in suburban Tokyo's first-ever sex toy expo, Adult Treasure 2007. While the gPod was a Japanese hit, Apple was a bit more jaded. After the adult toy company applied for trademarks, Apple asked them to cease use of the gPod name. The name is a conjunction of G-Spot and "jii", the Japanese word for masturbation. The Japanese company has refused Apple's advances and is ready to cat-fight it out in court.

Toothbrush Actively Gives Oral Feedback

Don't you wish everything you put in your mouth wasn't shy to shout out a little feedback? Oral-B's latest mission in your mouth is the Triumph toothbrush with SmartGuide. The tongue tickler comes equipped with an embedded microchip that communicates your "techniques" to a LCD, which tells you if you're playing your pearly whites too hard or to desperately "don't stop" if you haven't been brushing long enough. Oral-B claims it's "like having a dentist with you in the bathroom", but we'd much prefer a MD in our mouth.

Bots Outperform Boyfriends

Lusting in the labs, a team of individuals developed a series of bots that actively interact with "complex relationships". Dubbed GlowBots, the tech toys generate attractive patterns affected by both user and inter-robot interaction. Engadget elaborates, "the technology within is based on an open experimental robot platform, dubbed e-Puck, and the actual robots utilize "eight IR proximity sensors, a camera, a trio of microphones, three-axis accelerometer, a speaker, two stepper motors, Bluetooth interface, a number of LEDs, a PIC micro controller, and a 12-step-mode selector" to confess their love". Though these LED love-bots may be guilty of polluting the air with emo emissions, their three-axis accelerometers most likely have more heart than your recent hookup.

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