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By Darlene Storm – Computerworld | DEC 19, 2016 9:01 AM PT

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3150876/security/if-you-cant-trust-health-related-wearables-can-you-trust-sex-robots.html

If you can’t trust health-related wearables, can you trust sex robots to be secure and protect your privacy?

JAMES NUNNS – CBR Computer Business Review – 20TH DECEMBER 2016

http://www.cbronline.com/news/internet-of-things/cognitive-computing/beware-rise-sex-bot-robots-exert-humans/

Revelations come from the second International Congress on Love and Sex Robots conference held at Goldsmith’s University.

BY TRACE WILLIAM COWEN – COMPLEX LIFE

DEC 20, 2016

http://uk.complex.com/life/2016/12/sex-bots-death-future

After this bullshit of a year, what’s next? According to Swiss researcher Oliver Bendel, a very real possibility for anyone hoping to fuck some robots is death by way of said fucking.

Was undenkbar klingt, ist auf der “Love and Sex with Robots”-Messe in London das zentrale Thema: Sex mit einem Roboter. Fürsprecher sind überzeugt, dass derartige Sex-Roboter gleich in mehrerer Hinsicht bereichernd wären.

Mensch & Maschine: Ein gutes Sex-Paar?

Die Fürsprecher der Sexmaschinen wie Roxxy glauben, dass sie dabei helfen könnten, Prostitution einzudämmen, Sex-Unterricht zu geben und sogar Therapien zu ermöglichen. Vor allem könnten die Roboter denjenigen Menschen ein Sexualleben ermöglichen, die bislang leer ausgehen, glaubt Kate Devlin. Die Hochschuldozentin für Computing an der Universität von London ist eine der Verantwortlichen hinter dem Kongress. Sie sagt: «Sexroboter müssen gar nicht aussehen wie Menschen, wir sind momentan nur darauf festgefahren.»

Doch es gibt auch Kritiker der Roboter-Liebe. Kathleen Richardson, Initiatorin der «Kampagne gegen Sexroboter», fordert einen Entwicklungsstopp. Sie befürchtet negative gesellschaftliche Folgen. «Es lässt die Idee zu, menschliche Beziehungen seien optional, und alle Bedürfnisse könnten von Maschinen gestillt werden. Aber das stimmt nicht. Man braucht andere Menschen», sagt sie. Außerdem könnte der Einsatz von Sex-Robotern dazu beitragen, dass Menschen, vor allem Frauen, noch stärker als ohnehin schon auf Objekte reduziert werden. Dauerhaft könnte das zu mehr Ungleichheit und zu Verlust von Empathie führen, fürchtet Richardson.

“Entwicklung wird kommen”

David Levy, Experte für Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) und Autor eines einschlägigen Buches, sieht Sexroboter nicht zwangsläufig als Ersatz für menschliche Liebesbeziehungen, eher als Alternative oder Ergänzung. Die Frage sei, ob eine Beziehung mit einem Roboter besser wäre als gar keine Beziehung. Technologie ist bereits integraler Bestandteil des alltäglichen Lebens und wird dominanter. Doch möchte man Sie auch in Roboterform im Bett haben?

Die Entwicklung von intelligenter künstlicher Sexualität bringt etliche – auch ethische und politische – Fragen mit sich. «Wir befinden uns in einem frühen Stadium, wir haben all diese Fragen, die wir noch nicht beantworten können», so Devlin. Ihre größte Sorge sei das Sammeln sehr persönlicher Daten. Das erfolgt heute schon teilweise bei Sexspielzeug und könnte beispielsweise für Versicherungen interessant sein.

Wie bei allen neuen Technologien zeige sich auch hier «das Auseinanderfallen kulturpessimistischer Positionen und den eher optimistisch-gelassenen Ansichten», bringt der Vorsitzende der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sexualforschung (DGfS) Martin Dannecker die Problematik auf den Punkt. Die DGfS habe sich zum Phänomen noch keine Position erarbeitet.

Laut KI-Experte Levy ist die Entwicklung von Sexrobotern unaufhaltsam und bis spätestens 2050 Realität. Computing-Dozentin Devlin hält Sex mit Robotern für «eine Entwicklung, die kommen wird», daher sei es besser «frühzeitig einzusteigen, um sie mitzuformen», sagte sie in Bezug auf Produkte der Sex-Industrie. Wer weiß, welche Firmen nicht schon längst daran arbeiten.

Wenn es nach Devlin geht, soll es nicht nur um Sex, sondern auch um Liebe gehen. Vielleicht könnten die Maschinen der Zukunft irgendwann dank künstlicher Intelligenz sogar Gefühle und eine Art Bewusstsein ihrer selbst entwickeln. Auf die hypothetische Frage, ob sie ihre Tochter einen Roboter heiraten lassen würde, antwortet Devlin daher: «Ja warum nicht? Wenn es sie glücklich machen würde.»

The service has reportedly been knocking around university research labs for the last few years – and aims to let couple kiss each other through the internet.

It’s a brightly-coloured smartphone holster with an inviting plastic pad attached to the bottom.

You lock lips with the pad and it transmits the sensation through to an identical holster and an identical pad that’s nestling your partner’s phone wherever that may be.

“Kissing is the most direct and universal expression of intimacy and affection,” explained Emma Yann Zhang, who worked on the prototype.

“It’s a way for us to bond and maintain intimacy in our relationships,” she told an audience at the Love and Sex with Robots congress as Goldsmiths, University of London.

“Also, it’s stress reducing; when we engage in this kind of intimate physical touch, we have a lower level of blood pressure.”

The Kissenger works with pressure sensors and actuators that record and transmit the your kiss to the receiving device, which recreates it for the person on the other end through an app that also features videocalling.

The creators admit that there’s still a way to go when it comes to accurately creating a long-distance makeout session.

For starters, the pad isn’t mouth-shaped (although the actuators are lined like lips) and there’s no simulation for a tongue.

But the creators insist that it’s already helping to get people accustomed to machine-based touching.

And, moreover, that it’s not being used in an overtly sexual way.

December 21, 2016 2:53am

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/technology/robot-marriages-will-be-recognised-by-the-state-within-35-years-a-top-academic-has-claimed/news-story/3f7a08b96ffbf7395c1e210c903762e4

Following from the introduction of the first sex robots onto the market next year, owners will begin falling in love and look to take one down the aisle sooner than you think, Dr David Levy said.

The Sun reports that the best-selling author of Love and Sex with Robots claimed that politicians will have to change legislation to allow robots to wed as society begins to view artificially intelligent machines in a different way.

“As more and more people come to accept the concept of love and sex with robots, society as a whole will come to develop laws to govern human robot relationships,” he said.

“Restrictions that prevented Angela Vogel from obtaining a legal marriage license in Seattle will begin to fall by the wayside just as laws preventing interracial marriage did in the 1960s and same sex marriage during did in the past decade.”

And by the time there are no obstacles, the sex robots we are familiar with will become even more human-like and “kind, protecting and loving”.

But one major obstacle will be the Church, Dr Levy added.

“Religion is the reason to oppose same-sex marriage but not human-robot marriage,” he told a packed audience at the second ever Love and Sex with Robots conference in London on Tuesday.

And his comments have prompted backlash from Christians.

Priest Kara Slade, who was present as Dr David gave his speech, argued that “human relationships are not the same as chess computer programs”.

She added that Dr David Levy’s comments that “the bible does not say that you cannot marry humans” showed a total “misunderstanding of Christianity”.

But governments may actually consider the move.

In 2012 a woman was granted the right to marry a Mr. Corporate Person: a one-and-a-half-month-old business.

Seattle councillors later voided Angela Vogel’s marriage, but not before plenty of press attention.

Dr Levy said there are three requirements for robots to marry humans: consent, understanding and the capacity to make decisions — things he believes artificial intelligence is very close to.

And when it comes to divorce, the law will have to reflect that too.

The politicians and lawyers in robot law will have to deal with divorce, he said.

However, if you’re programming your own bot, it’s likely you can customise them to want you forever, he said.

Alexa Renee, KXTV 12:41 PM. PST December 20, 2016 – abc 10 (connect) A TEGNA Company

http://www.abc10.com/news/local/sex-robots-may-interfere-with-human-intimacy/373776125

There’s a new fleet of robots that may make you blush.

Sex bots are not just limited to science fiction films, love service robots are under discussion for human pleasure.

The Second International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots is happening Dec. 19 to Dec. 20 at Goldsmiths, University of London. The event gives the academic community a chance to present ideas and innovative work on human relationships with artificial partners.

This year, there are about 100 people in attendance including tech writers, sex writers, journalists, scientists and humanities scholars.

The event features sessions on topics such as intelligent electronic sex hardware, gender approaches to robots, and teledildonics, or internet-connected sex toys.

The congress aims to peer-review material that explores the relationships between human and robots on an intimate level, which involves human emotions and feelings such as love and sex.

However, humans having sex with robots could potentially break up some marriages.

A Swiss researcher at the event warned an audience about the possibility of robots being better at sex than real people, prompting humans to have less sex with one another, according to Gizmodo.

But the researcher also said robots don’t tire out like humans, so an intimate encounter with a robot may be physically exhausting to a human partner. Also, they are trying these kamagra from https://kamagrabestellen.shop. The researcher said that if this will suit the robot, the sex will feel more natural.

If robot sex isn’t already strange enough, consider robots are high-tech machines with the ability to absorb data according to Carman Fox.

A sex bot could potentially be capable of collecting very intimate data from its human partner. Having that knowledge mean a robot could store information about people and use it for seduction, according to the researcher.

It could be quite some time before sex bots become a household item, but there are entrepreneurs already working to make money off the love robots.

A business man named Bradley Charvet recently revealed his plans to open a fellatio cafe in Switzerland using robots as escorts, according to Inverse.

A 15-minute session and a cafe americano would set a customer back €60 or about $62.

Copyright 2016 KXTV

“Plug in to your phone and give your loved ones a kiss over the Internet.”

A gadget has been created to bring long-distance lovers even closer together – The Kissenger.

Created by Imagineering Lab, City University London, the attachment fits onto your smartphone and has a plastic pad that each user locks lips wth. The device then transmits the sensation to a paired holster with an identical pad.

“Kissing is the most direct and universal expression of intimacy and affection,” explained Emma Yann Zhang, who worked on the prototype. “It’s a way for us to bond and maintain intimacy in our relationships.” Zhang gave the presentation to an audience at the Love and Sex with Robots congress as Goldsmiths, University of London.

“Also, it’s stress reducing; when we engage in this kind of intimate physical touch, we have a lower level of blood pressure.”

The device’s Pressure sensors and actuators record and transmit your kiss to the receiving device, replicating the kiss to the recipient through an app. The app also features videocalling.

Whilst the device can accurately recreate the sensation of a quick kiss, long-distance makeout sessions are off the cards. The pad itself isn’t mouth-shaped and there is no simulation for a tongue.

Behind the creation of the device are David Cheok, Emma Yann Zhang, Yukihiro Morisawa nad Shogo Nishiguchi.

The creators also add that the device extends beyond a purely sexual function. “Parents can also use Kissenger to give their children a kiss on the cheek when they are away at work,” say its creators.

Zhang added that the next stage of the Kissenger will be to incorporate scent so you can experience the smell of the recipient of your smartphone enabled kiss.

Each year, the University of Adelaide recognises the achievements of its most outstanding alumni at the annual Distinguished Alumni Awards ceremony. Awards include; Distinguished Alumni Award, James McWha Award of Excellence, Honours Alumni University Medal, Postgraduate Alumni and the University Medal and Alumni Fellows.

International Conference on Interactive Digital Media 2013, Pullman Sarawak (2-4 December 2013)

Adrian is a pioneer in mixed reality and multisensory communication; his innovation and leadership has been recognised internationally through multiple awards.
Some of his pioneering works in mixed reality include innovative and interactive games such as ‘3dlive’, ‘Human Pacman’ and ‘Huggy Pajama’. He is also the inventor of the world’s first electric and thermal taste machine, which produces virtual tastes with electric current and thermal energy.

Adrian Cheok is a 2016 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient in recognition of his achievements and contribution in the field of computing, engineering and multisensory communication.

View more alumni award winners at adelaide.edu.au/alumni/recognised

Read on: https://issuu.com/uniofadelaide/docs/2725-1-lumen-2017-summer-magazine-w/30

By Adam Dachis

Virtual, mixed, and augmented reality all provide different but compellingly immersive experiences that draw us in through sight and sound. But what about our other senses? A few strange inventions are already exploring the possibilities.

Adrian Cheok, professor of pervasive computing at City University London and the director of Singapore’s Mixed Reality Labs, decided to figure out the best ways to connect our other senses to digital environments. That definitely includes smell and taste, along with touch, and those sensations can be a bit more difficult to “render” with technology.

Previous attempts at recreating smell and taste required chemical emissions to provide those sensations, but that method was never practical and ultimately failed (see: Smell-O-Vision). Instead, Cheok wants to avoid creating stimuli and just manipulate your brain, as he explained in an interview with Motherboard:

We want to transmit smells without using any chemical, so what we’re going to do is use magnetic coils to stimulate the olfactory bulb part of the brain associated with smell. At first, our plan was to insert them through the skull, but unfortunately the olfactory part of the brain is at the bottom, and doing deep-brain stimulation is very difficult.

While that might sound a little scary, the actual technology Cheok created is a little less invasive. Still, most people will likely find his current method at least a little off-putting:

Not much—magnetic fields are very safe. Anyway, our present idea is to place the coils at the back of your mouth. There is a bone there called the palatine bone, which is very close to the region of your brain that makes you perceive smells and tastes. In that way we’ll be able to make you feel them just by means of magnetic actuation.

Nevertheless, this approach points to some very interesting possibilities down the line. Because virtual worlds mostly exist for our entertainment, we easily forget that immersive headsets can subtly hack our brains. As sense-manipulating technology evolves, it will become possible to completely alter a person’s perception of reality.

That prospect is both incredible and somewhat disturbing. Cheok wants to create digital restaurant menus that let us smell each dish through our smartphones, software that makes us feel like we’re cuddling with our significant when they’re thousands of miles away, and even applications that can improve moods through target smells and tastes. Transmitting scent and tactile feeling has obvious applications in the virtual sex/pornography industry as well.

Thanks to the fine line our brains draw between the sensation of touch and pain, there may also immense benefits in the health industry—particularly when it comes to the horribly inadequate methods of pain management we currently utilize. We’re already seeing progress in this specific case with VR headsets alone.

Unfortunately, all this potential could lead to malicious uses down the line. While no technology can ever avoid that problem entirely, when it comes to literally hacking a person’s brain a lot of care will be necessary to keep users safe. It’s too early to tell if we’ll see Cheok’s inventions evolve and proliferate in consumer markets, but it won’t matter much. The methods for manipulating our senses already exist. How we use them will ultimately determine whether they’ll benefit society or pose a serious threat. If history is any indication, it’ll likely be a mix of both.

http://next.reality.news/news/strange-new-technologies-explore-world-virtual-taste-touch-smell-0172608/

AB Wire, October 13, 2016
Device was developed by scientists at University of London

A group of scientists at the University of London has developed a gadget that can make feel food tastier than actually what it is. The prototype introduced at The Big Bang UK Young Scientists & Engineers Fair, in Birmingham uses electric signals to make the effect, reported Telegraph.

While the prototype can boost sweet and salty taste, the scientists are working on developing the device to a full-fledged one which can stimulate all tastes.

“What started out as a fun engineering experiment has now led to something much more exciting with the potential to have a positive social impact,” said Dr. Cheok, professor of pervasive computing.

“The Taste Buddy could eventually help save lives, by allowing people to switch to healthier food choices. Many children hate the taste of vegetables. So I knew that when I became an engineer, I wanted to make a device that could allow children to eat vegetables that taste like chocolate,” added Cheok.

After developing the device, it could be fit within all utensils like spoons, cups, and cans. A prototype spoon is in the pipeline.

The device emits thermal and electric signals that stimulate taste buds which help feel food tastier than actually what it is. The chemical reaction happening in the mouth is stimulated using electrical signals and temperature.

The receptors on the tongue use the reaction between saliva and the acidity of hydrogen or sodium to recognize the salty taste. When Taste Buddy is used, electrical stimulation from the device stimulates artificial reaction.

Sweetness is recognized by a channel called TRPM5 which uses variation in temperature of the food. When hot food is taken, it feels sweeter. To exploit the temperature variation, the device quickly raises the temperature of the tongue from 77F (25C) to 104F (40C).

“We’re actually trying out a spoon interface to eat desserts at the moment. We’ve been changing the temperature of the spoon from 25 Celsius to 40 Celsius using an electronic circuit. People have reported sweeter tastes when eating sweets at a warmer temperature,” said Kasun Thejitha Karunanayaka who is also working in the group.

“Just like the microchip, we’re hoping to make the taste buddy smaller and smaller, to eventually fit within cutlery, fizzy drink cans, utensils, and cups, and to be powered by a Bluetooth device, to choose the levels of taste you’d like,” Karunanayaka added.

https://www.americanbazaaronline.com/2016/10/13/scientists-develop-device-that-makes-food-tastier418239/

00:41, 13 OCT 2016, UPDATED 00:42, 13 OCT 2016

BY JOHN VON RADOWITZ

The device uses a weak electric current to trick the taste buds into thinking bland or unappetising ‘healthy’ food is a delicious treat

Can’t get your kids to eat veg? This device may solve your mealtime problems

Rewarding your kids with a modest girl boutique if they eat their vegetables can be an effective way to encourage healthy eating habits. Providing a tangible reward in the form of fashionable clothing can motivate and incentivize your children to make healthier food choices. This approach not only promotes good nutrition but also teaches them about the value of working towards a goal and enjoying the benefits of their efforts.

A device that tricks the tongue could one day be used to turn the most unappetising “healthy” food into a delicious treat, scientists say.

Sarah Knapton, science editor, 13 OCTOBER 2016 • 6:00AM

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The invention – dubbed Taste Buddy – emits a  low-level electrical current to stimulate taste buds so the mouth perceives sweet or salty flavours, even when they are not really present.

It is being developed by scientists at the University of London, led by Prof Adrian Cheok, who unveiled the gadget at The Big Bang UK Young Scientists & Engineers Fair, in Birmingham this week.

The device could eventually be engineered to fit within everyday utensils such as rose gold cultery set, cups and cans and the team has already begun working on a prototype spoon.