Pornhub now supports interactive toys | Hacker News Reader

Pornhub now supports interactive toys

techcrunch.com

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For those interested in the open source side of interactive toys, check out:

http://buttplug.io (NSFW)

We're working on a fully open source, cross platform, cross hardware system for supporting things like this. All of our code is up on github (http://github.com/metafetish), and we have a server in C# (mainly due to Windows being our best MVP platform, typescript/javascript on the way soon with WebBluetooth for all platforms supported by that), with clients in javascript and C#, and Go, Rust, and Python on the way soon.

Our protocol layout documentation is at:

https://metafetish.github.io/buttplug/ (SFW outside of wording, just text and some flow charts)

We currently support the Fleshlight Launch, Kiiroo Onyx, the full line of Lovense toys, and even XInput gamepads. I've already reversed a ton of other toys (KGoal, Vorze, WeVibe, RealTouch, etc...), so those will be coming in later versions, we're just trying to reach v1 right now.

We're still a bit out from our first release, but we're always interested in contributors from all levels and backgrounds, from Bluetooth/USB reverse engineering up through frontend.

If you're interested in how all of this stuff works, from the hardware all the way to the web services, I did a full teardown and explanation of the Fleshlight Launch and Feelme service on my youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA7MdO0rEoo

I'm guessing Porhub has more VR videos watched than all other VR videos combined.

I'm surprised we don't get many machine learning papers coming from PornHub.

Low margin business

Can't imagine the operations over at a place like Pornhub - "Hey Bob, our teledildonic websocket latency keeps spiking, see if you can't lock it down."

I have a Kiiroo Onyx on my desk right now and people keep touching the squishy inside part. (I work at Pornhub)

It'll be very interesting if you could do a mini-AMA! Not sure whether hn is right forum for that though.

I've done two AMAs on Reddit, there is some interesting stuff after you get through the top voted jokes.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4dmwry/we_are_the_por... and https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1un3wn/we_are_the_por...

Those were hilarious. Appreciate the links. Most interesting was someone proposing you add a LinkedIn tag for trolling, finding out it was already there, and you got 100+ visitors from it. Crazy lol.

You should totally expense a Launch. The Onyx was /such/ a horrible piece of hardware, I can't believe they're still selling it. :)

Man, you make the Pornhub suggestions forum a hilarious thing to read.

Any chance you guys are looking for new engineers?

There's actually a ton of problems with haptic latency in the current Kiiroo/Feelme setup. I did a teardown of the launch hardware and web services on my sex toy hacking youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA7MdO0rEoo

I've thought the same. They probably have some very interesting problems to solve due to their size though.

You weren't joking, that's literally tele-dildonics

Fun fact: he didn’t make that word up. “Teledildonics” was coined by Ted Nelson, the Xanadu guy, way back in the 70s.

When the 90's dotcom boom first started to slow down, a friend of mine joked that we'd all end up working at porn sites if things didn't turn around. Fast forward almost a decade later to 2005, and I was working as a .NET engineer at the company that ran NakedSword.com* (as well as a few dozen other sites).

Now I make a proactive effort to track both my job security and the job market so I'll know when the optimal time is to go back into working in porn.

*NSFW. Duh.

I thought doing anything in the adult industry in IT was a blackhole? i.e. It's hard to go back to non-porn afterward from social dynamics.

Why? I recently interviewed a Senior Backend Dev whose last job was at a Pornsite.

He was easily the most qualified candidate for the position and we failed to win him over because a bigger company offered some perks we couldn't, he was fought over by a couple of companies afaik.

That's reassuring.

I'm in Germany though, it might be that US companies are pickier.

If so: we're hiring ;)

Link? Uh, for science.

FastBill.com/jobs

Only in German at the moment, sorry, will be updated soon. We have English only devs working for us and our working language is english.

If you offer relocation I'd totally do it. Part of my family left Germany in the 1850s (ish)

Depending on your priorities, a move to Germany/Europe as an US based software engineer might be something you think about longer. Without going deeper into that discussion:

The salaries are mostly lower for software engineers than in the US while the taxes are higher. Counter to that is the stronger social net, universal healthcare, unemployment benefits. It gets obviously more complex depending on where you move as the cost of living fluctuates wildly.

>Part of my family left Germany in the 1850s

That doesn't really matter as much as it seems you think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIMA2f6JmvE

Easily the most competent people I've ever hired or worked with worked for adult companies.

Coming back into the "real world" after my time spent in adult was like going back to high school in terms of social dynamics within the workplace (politics and niceness over competence). Everything moves in slow motion comparatively.

Yeah I guess when you have to deal with busybodies from one side, and wannabe hackers from the other there is little room for antics.

Are you... er, missing a d there in the Domain name?

On-line porn is not the refuge it once was. There are maybe half a dozen companies of any size these days to work for on the tech side.

The industry has vastly consolidated and the margins are now much leaner than they once were. No more refuge for that smart hacker type who has a computer crime felony on his record, unfortunately. It was one of the last places on earth folks like that could provide value.

Remote contracting is place to be for that guy, now.

Does anyone have any idea on how these sites make enough money to offset the enormous bandwidth costs? The scale is phenomenal.

I assume that, as with mobile gaming, that there are a relatively small (compared to the total user base, much of which is F2P) number of “whales” that have very large, recurring spend that is driving the industry.

I could be wrong, though.

Porn sites are very aggressive with ads. Think of any sort of dark pattern used in web advertising and odds are porn sites are using it.

And likely invented more than a fiar share.

McAfee talked about porn sites being paid to download spyware/keylogger software onto devices. Click play on a video etc, something is downloading in the background. I think of this as how some sites/software in the early 2000s automatically downloaded a toolbar when installing.

I'm sure many porn sites do this, not sure about the more "reputable" ones. Storing/streaming all that info can't be cheap.

From industry analysis I read last two years, porn sites tend to be remarkably safe with even low measured trackers. The industry evolved and learned. Churches two years ago had the most malware (since their pages teens to be done by someone nephew who is supposed to be talent but has zero experience).

can you link me to some of the analysis? be interesting to read about what they chose as sites.

remember when i had some guardian software that blocked trackers. surprising amounts from chinese gov't and chinese universities.

Easy. A near-captive audience that also happens to be demographically comparatively narrowcast == steady ad revenue.

Is the demographic really comparatively narrowcast?

My understanding of the current porn industry is that mindgeek have cornered the market in video via pornhub and all their other online destinations, and that all that 'free' content that is a click away is ripped off from publishing houses.

I have no idea how the porn business still makes money since everything seems to be free these days, but this interactive aspect seems a good way for some kind of commercial, fee paying service that interacts with hardware devices?

There are people on this thread who are in the industry, is my perception accurate or did I misunderstand the market?

In terms of hosted video, yeah, you're pretty spot on.

The new hotness, as it were, is cam models with some sort of toy control. There's two common ways this can happen:

- Model uses interactive toy that is controlled by tip amounts/frequency

- Model uses interactive toy that can control other interactive toys that viewers are using

This is not particularly new technology. RealTouch was doing this 6 years ago until they were shut down by a patent suit, see https://www.metafetish.com/2014/04/17/realtouch-the-shutdown..., and there were even cam sync'd toys in the late 90s, as long as you were cool with your 2-3 FPS over a modem. However, with the availability of streaming services and bandwidth now, it's feasible for more players to get involved.

Thanks - I like the idea of the talent getting paid, this seems a good way for this to happen.. the sensory eye candy person controlling some sort of remote stimulation. I can see this being huge in the VR industry and a good one to few model that might supersede the 'all you can consume' ripped off content sites that currently have massive page views...

Today's secret word is "teledildonics"! :D

"Teledildonics is the new block chain!"

Thought that was totally made up. Apparently it was coined in 1975 to describe remote sex where sensations are sent over a datalink.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledildonics

I wish that would fit on a license plate. "sexjar" does though, so there's that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOKaqBfhcIE

TELEDLDO

You take that back.

In mostly seriousness, could you imagine being the first programmer to have a security hole in your teledildonics embedded code? You think remote cameras are going to generate some lawsuits, well... I can only imagine the pure hell of a remote exploit in a sex toy that allows remote control or even "problematic" motion. That would be a CEE (career ending event).

Check out http://internetofdon.gs, a project by a security researcher trying to make all of these products safer.

It seems a bit of a stretch to call these toys 'interactive'. Interactive means responding to input; in these examples, the punters' sexjars are passive broadcast receivers, not input devices. They aren't feeding back to the performer. Or to each other - P2P [1] communication would be an interesting application here.

[1] perv-to-perv

Your beef is with the interface and the content, not the toy. The toy is totally interactive (it's just a BLE device after all), though using it in an interactive way is wading into a patent minefield (just google "teledildonics patent" or "268 patent"). However Kiiroo is one of the licensors of the patent, so we'll probably see more from them.

3D printers for this industry can turn into a huge thing, right? Being able to print replicas of somebody else's member can represent a whole new revenue stream.

Paging cstross.

All the talk about latency has me wondering if the work here is eventually going to push telemedicine forward. Maybe a first aid kit that contains a tele-dressing kit that can be used by a remote worker to perform minor but intricate procedures?

I'd be interesting to know what a typical day looks like for a developer at PornHub. You must become immune to pornography after a while I imagine

I imagine, if you're implying the "special" perks are anything sexual, you'd be disappointed. It's a workplace like any other from what I've read. A job is a job.

A number of Reddit AMA's have supported your idea of immunity to pornography. It all becomes rather boring while on the job. After hours, though, that's a good question.

Heard something similar regarding candy factories allowing employees to eat as much as they want from the produce. New employees will gourge themselves for the first few days, and then lose all interest.

When you work at somewhere like that the company Christmas party is only a few emails away from having a very interesting guest list.

My vision is becoming reality.

... Allen? Is that you?

I'm selling jackulusrift.com if anyone is interested.

Paves the way for... what, precisely?

This whole idea of "virtualizing" and "democratizing" (read; corporatizing and monetizing) what is already probably the most intense physical and interpersonal experience you can already have; an experience that's not only freely available, but literally at your fingertips, at any time (or not even that: you just need to close your eyes, and think of... entertaining thoughts) -- is profoundly, profoundly depressing.

And besides, with all these must, dead-trees 17th- 20th century smut novels to read -- who can possibly find the time?

Forget this online stuff. Get out of your apartment, and find a real, actual person to talk to. I know it can seem hard, sometimes. But really, is isn't.

My guess is they're referring to the impact the porn industry has had on the direction of technology (e.g. VHS/Betamax). If this kind of tech finds success in porn it won't be long until you're sitting in a special seat to watch regular movies and experiencing the sensations of a character as he gets in a fight (or something like that).

I'll take the VHS/Betamax era porn, with all its schlock and graininess, over the PornHub era any day, thank you very much. At least they seemed to have some semblance of a sense of humor about this stuff, in those days. They also -- this cannot be under-appreciated -- tended to show human bodies the way they actually were, by and large.

You're missing the point (again). VHS defeated Betamax because Sony tried to keep porn off betamax.

You're missing the point (again).

I love when you get haughty and abrasive online, at some stranger you've never met. Over basically nothing.

I'm not sure if you're missing the point inadvertently, or through conscious effort. This comment thread really seems to be more about your personal sexual outlook, rather than the possibility of some porn technology crossing over into mainstream (non-porn) application.

That is, for someone who counsels us all to go outside, find a girlfriend, whatever... you sure sound like a bit of a porn connoisseur privately yourself.

Despite what others seem to be implying, I don't think there's anything at all wrong with looking at porn, per se (and in some contexts, it can quite healthy) -- or in acknowledging this fact publicly -- if that's what you're getting at. But at some point it reaches a saturation point, and you kind of realize there's not much of a "there, there", in that medium.

So as to "connoisseur" -- sorry, no.

This comment thread really seems to be more about your personal sexual outlook, rather than the possibility of some porn technology crossing over into mainstream (non-porn) application.

The original article, which was really quite straightforward, wasn't making any kind of far-flung statements about potential crossover effects of their technology at all. And it certainly wasn't making any references -- even indirect references -- to the (basically apocryphal and unsubstantiated) "porn killed betamax" story line.

So as much as people are browbeating me for "missing the point" -- those definitely weren't the main points of (or in way mentioned in) the article, either.

we get it, you're better and smarter than everyone else

No, I'm definitely not. But for whatever reason, a lot people seem to be misreading both the original article, and my throwaway responses to it.

It's fun. Chill out.

Plenty of couples enjoy watching porn together.

I wasn't talking about porn, per se.

I dunno about "plenty." Probably around 0.1% or something.

That's plenty.

I'd put it WAY higher.

Maybe I've just been dating the wrong--or right--girls. But none of them have ever shown the slightest interest in anything like this.

Maybe you (subconsciously?) keep going for the same type of girls?

> interpersonal experience

> at your fingertips

Can't really have it both ways, there. Otherwise I can only think there'd be far fewer unhappy, discontented people in the world.

Pornography (and prostitution) have existed for the entire history of human civilization. You wouldn't claim that Ancient Egypt or Greece were robbing their citizens of their freedom through those things.

I agree that there is a huge ignorance of ethics in today's world of software development, and I wish we stopped putting so much of ourselves online, I don't see why sex is the one thing you think is more important than the thousands of other violations of privacy and humanity that happens online.

Also, the porn industry has brought about a lot of different interesting new technologies that eventually bled into the rest of the tech industry (credit card verification is one trivial example, there's plenty of others).

Pornography (and prostitution) have existed for the entire history of human civilization.

Again -- I wasn't referring to porn, per se. I think that's pretty clear.

I don't see why sex is the one thing you think is more important than the thousands of other violations of privacy and humanity that happens online.

I guess because sex is (orders of magnitude) more important than most other activities we put "online", and more to the point, into corporate (and SIGINT) data warehouses? For who knows how many weird, lonely men to tabulate and analyze?

> I guess because sex is (orders of magnitude) more important than most other activities we put "online"

I find internet-connected-dildos to be less important than the free speech violations due to censorship, the rampant disregard for user freedoms, proprietary software's use as spyware, the massive surveillance engine injesting information about all of us, an so on.

You're comparing against the extremal cases. I was referring to "most" activities. You know, things like your likes and your playlists, your Etsy purchases, etc.

> I guess because sex is (orders of magnitude) more important than most other activities

To you.

To some of us it isn't that big a deal and is best treated lightly.

Substitute "private and personal" for "important" if you like.

To some of us it isn't that big a deal

The "deal" here is with surveillance -- not sex.

Fair enough, I misunderstood your post it seems.

No problem - I appreciate your perspective, actually.

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