Patent Application
20150328082
The disclosure relates to an interactive entertainment system, and, more particularly, to an interactive entertainment system that generates sensory feedback for sexual activity.
The adult toy industry is one of the largest and most successful aspects of adult entertainment today. One particular aspect of that industry, namely the manufacture and sale of vibrators/dildos, provides a significant percentage of the sales revenue for adult toy producers. Sales of these devices top multiple millions annually, with manufacturers producing both the devices themselves as well as replacement parts and accessories all over the world.
Typically, vibrators, dildos, and other sex toys have been manufactured in a variety of shapes, with the devices being capable of a variety of pleasurable functions and/or functionalities. As is suggested by the name, most vibrators, dildos, and other sex toys are capable of vibrating and/or gyrating, while others may be capable of rotation, extension, as well as emitting an electric charge. These devices can come in a variety of shapes and sizes.
As technology has developed further, convergence of sex toys and wireless communications has led to remote controllable sex toys. Early on, remote control of a sex toy required that the sex toy and the remote controller be generally in the same vicinity, e.g., in the same room. However, as networking technologies became more common place and sophisticated, remote control sex toys can be accessed at great distances via the internet, or other data networks. In addition, the advent of the internet and video conferencing has further enabled couples to maintain long-distance relationships with a high degree of communication and intimacy by pleasuring each other using remotely enabled sex toys.
Sex toys have also been very popular in virtual sex systems, where users pleasure themselves by having virtual sex with either a virtual character on a video screen or a pornographic video using sex toys. However, the virtual sex systems, at best, only provide preset feedback to the users or no feedback at all to the users of the virtual sex systems. The preset feedback is the same for all users no matter how the users interact with the virtual sex systems. Therefore, it is desirable to develop new devices, systems, and methods that can provide custom user feedback depending on the user's preferences and the user's interactions.
In addition, remote sex systems do not provide any feedback of the status of a remote sex toy and the status of the stimulation to a user that may be remotely controlling the remote sex toy. Therefore, it is desirable to develop new devices, systems, and methods that can provide feedback of the stimulations and the status of the remote sex toy to the user to inform the user of the stimulations and the status of the sex toy.
Briefly, the disclosure relates to an interactive entertainment system, comprising: a display device for viewing an interactive video; and a controller for operating one or more sex toys for providing stimulations to a user at a remote location and displayed in the interactive video, wherein a sensory feedback is generated as a function of the provided stimulations, wherein the sensory feedback indicates one or more of the following: strength of the stimulations; patterns of the stimulations; status of the stimulations; characteristics of the stimulations, types of the stimulations, status of the sex toy, wherein the one or more sex toys and the controller are at different locations. The one or more sex toys can be virtual objects or real objects, while the user can be a virtual user or a natural person.
The foregoing and other aspects of the disclosure can be better understood from the following detailed description of the embodiments when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
a-3c illustrate diagrams of sex toys having visual feedback indicators.
a-4k illustrate examples of various lighting configurations of visual feedback indicators for sex toys.
a illustrates a diagram of an interactive entertainment system for remotely operating a sex toy, where an audio feedback indicator is provided.
b illustrates a diagram of an interactive entertainment system for remotely operating a sex toy, where a haptic feedback indicator is provided.
a-9b illustrate diagrams of a sex toy having detachable modules.
a-10b illustrate diagrams of another embodiment of a sex toy having detachable modules.
a-11b illustrate diagrams of yet another embodiment of a sex toy having a detachable rabbit device.
a-16b illustrate diagrams of an interactive entertainment system for engaging in virtual sexual activity.
a-21b illustrate diagrams of other examples of a device displaying an interactive video having a privacy control setting.
In the following detailed description of the embodiments, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration of specific embodiments in which the disclosure may be practiced.
Referring to
During remote sex activities, the user 60 controls the sex toy 68 remotely through the controller 62. The user 60 can input commands to the controller 62 to control the sex toy 68. The controller 62 can have a non-graphical interface (e.g., a gesture input, a voice input, a text input, etc.) or a graphical user interface to control the stimulation directly (e.g., by controlling the vibration amplitudes and frequencies of one or more actuators of the sex toy 68) or allow the user 60 to send predefined stimulations to the sex toy 68. The user 66 can be displayed in the interactive video. The user 66 can be a virtual character that is computer generated by the interactive entertainment system or can be another physical user in the interactive entertainment system. Privacy controls can be selected or automatically applied such that one or more areas of the user 66 or of user 66's environment can be blurred in the interactive video.
The user 60 can represent a human user and a user 66 can represent a remote partner (either a virtual partner or another human user) that the user 60 interacts with. The controller 62 can be a smart device that the user 60 uses to remotely control the sex toy 68, where the commands are routed through a data/computer network, e.g., the internet or other electronic network, from the controller 62 to the sex toy 68. The remotely located sex toy 68 can be either a physical device or a virtual device. If the display device 64 is a computer, then the user can input commands using the keyboard or other user input method of the computer to interact with the interactive video of the user 66. The commands from the controller 62 (or any other user input devices) can also be routed by the computer or by the controller 62 (if the controller has data connection capability) to the remotely located sex 68 toy via the internet or other electronic network. The controller 62 and the user 60 can be at a first location, which is remotely located from the user 66 and the sex toy 68. The user 66 and the sex toy 68 can also be virtually created, which can be also considered to be remotely located from the user 60 and the controller 62. Thus, the location can be a virtually created location or the actual location of the other user 66.
Although, the user 60 is controlling the remotely located sex toy 68, the user 60 may not have a direct sense of the motion and status of the sex toy 68. In other words, the user 60 doesn't know what the sex toy 68 is doing even though the user 60 is controlling the sex toy 68. Thus, it is important to provide the user 60 with some type of sensory feedback, so that user 60 knows about the motion and status of the sex toy 68. The interactive entertainment system can provide sensory feedback to the user 60 either through visual feedback, audio feedback, and/or haptic feedback.
a-3c illustrate diagrams of sex toys having visual feedback indicators.
The base 80 can have a user interface 86 for selecting one or more stimulation strengths and patterns and a visual feedback indicator 88. The visual feedback indicator 88 can comprise a light source (e.g., one or more light emitting diodes (“LEDs”), or other lighting device) and can be located anywhere on the sex toy 78. The visual feedback indicator 88 provides a light pattern to visually indicate the strength, the pattern, the type, and/or other status information of the stimulations of the sex toy 78 and the status of the sex toy 78. Therefore, a user can view the light pattern from the visual feedback indicator 88 on the sex toy 78 to determine the strength, the pattern, the type, and/or other status information of the stimulations of the sex toy 78 and the status of the sex toy 78.
Visual feedback can be provided on the sex toy 78 by having components that can produce light. In an example embodiment, the visual feedback indicator can be nine LEDs in an array on the base 80 of the sex toy 78. The LEDs can be lighted to indicate a vibration status and patterns of the sex toy 78. In alternative embodiments, the sex toy 78 can have other lighting elements to implement the visual feedback indicator. For instance, the sex toy 78 can have one or more lighting elements in the sex toy 78 to light up the entire toy 78 or part of the sex toy 78.
Alternatively, the visual feedback indicator of the sex toy 78 can be located on a wired connection to the sex toy 78. This can aid a viewer of the sex toy 78 since some users prefer to insert the sex toy 78 into a bodily cavity in which the sex toy 78 may no longer be externally viewable. However, by having the visual feedback indicator located on the wired connection, a viewer can still view the visual feedback regardless of the user inserting the sex toy 78 into the bodily cavity.
The vibrational pattern of the sex toy 78 can be mapped to a pattern of light on the LEDs. The pattern of the light can indicate to a remote user (or the current user of the sex toy 78) the vibrational pattern (or other haptic pattern) of the sex toy 78. For instance, when a remote user sees the flashing of the LEDs of the sex toy 78 on a display device of the interactive entertainment system, the remote user can be notified of the operation of the sex toy 78, e.g., the exact stimulation strength and pattern for that sex toy 78.
With reference to
b and 3c illustrate alternate locations that the visual feedback indicator can be located at. The lighting elements of a visual feedback indicator can be positioned at different locations on the sex toy 78. For instance, a visual feedback indicator 90 can be positioned on the shaft 82. Also, a visual feedback indicator 90 can be positioned at the bottom of the base 80. Other positions for the visual feedback indicator are apparent based on the present disclosure. The present figures are meant to aid in the understanding of the disclosure and are not meant to be limiting since a person having ordinary skill in the art can appreciate other locations on the sex toy 78 to position the visual feedback indicator.
The sex toy 78 can further comprise one or more biometric sensors. Haptic feedback can be generated based on the biometric information. The sex toy can have embedded sensors to measure biometric information of the user, such as blood pressure, blood oxygen level, heart rate, hardness of the penis, and excitement level of the user. Those parameters can be used by the system to decide what the most suitable haptic effect for the user in his/her current state.
a-4k illustrate various lighting configurations of visual feedback indicators for sex toys.
The previous examples of visual feedback indictors are a sampling of forms that the visual feedback indicator may take. It is understood that other patterns can become apparent based on the present disclosure such that the lighting elements can be other shapes and in other configurations. For instance, one or more lighting elements can be embedded within a sex toy and beneath a transparent or semi-transparent layer of the sex toy (e.g., a semi-transparent silicon cover, semi-transparent rubber cover, transparent plastic sheath, or other cover or sheath of the sex toy). Thereby, the one or more lighting elements can be illuminated in unison or in various orders to change its brightness, frequency, color, density, and/or other property of the lighting elements to serve as a visual feedback indicator of the sex toy. Since the lighting elements are embedded underneath a transparent or semi-transparent layer of the sex toy, a portion or the entire sex toy can be illuminated by the lighting elements in accordance with the visual feedback indicator. In particular, the sex toy's illumination by the lighting elements can serve as the visual feedback indicator to a user.
Furthermore, one or more visual feedback indicators can be used on a single device. For instance, a sex toy can have a first visual feedback indicator on the bottom of the base of the sex toy and a second visual feedback indicator on the side of the sex toy so that the visual feedback indicators can be discerned from various viewing angles.
a illustrates a diagram of an interactive entertainment system for remotely operating a sex toy, where an audio feedback indicator is provided. In many cases, stimulations from the sex toy 68 are not loud enough for the user 60 to hear. Thus, additional audio feedback can be provided to the user 60 so that he/she knows the stimulation strength/patterns and/or status of the sex toy 68. The display device 64 and/or the controller 62 can provide an audio feedback indicator (e.g., audio sound 122 and/or audio sound 124) to indicate the stimulation (e.g., vibrational strength, frequency, patterns, and/or other haptic feedback) of the sex toy 68. The audio sound 122 can be played by speakers 120 of the display device 64. The audio sound 124 can be played by speakers 124 of the controller 62. Each audio tone or pattern can reflect the stimulation types, strength, and/or patterns of the sex toy 68. Furthermore, status information regarding the sex toy 68 can also be indicated via the audio sound 122 and/or audio sound 124. For instance, if the sex toy 68 is in an off state or idle state, an audio pattern can be played as an audio feedback indicator to reflect such state. Also, the audio feedback may also be provided to the user through other external speakers (not shown). The audio sounds 122 and 124 may mimic the vibrational sounds generated by a motor (or other sounds as desired, e.g., something that does not resemble a motor sound such as a ring tone or some other melody).
In other embodiments, if the sex toy 68 has one or more actuators, the audible pattern from the actuators can serve as a sensory feedback to the user 60. In such case, either actuators with loud audible sound are purposely picked, or other structures/features are added to amplify the sound from the actuators so that the user 60 can hear the audible pattern. The user 60 can either be physically present to hear the audible pattern of the actuators of the sex toy 68 or via the speakers of the display device 64 and/or the controller 62. Thereby, the audible pattern can indicate to the user 60 the stimulation strength/patterns and/or status of the sex toy 68.
b illustrates a diagram of an interactive entertainment system for remotely operating a sex toy, where a haptic feedback indicator is provided. In another example of an interactive entertainment system, the interactive entertainment system may further comprise a haptic device 126 for generating haptic feedback to a user 60. The haptic device 126 can be used to stimulate the user 60. In addition, either or both of the controller 62 and the haptic device 126 can provide a haptic feedback to indicate the stimulation strength/patterns and/or status of the sex toy 68. For instance, the vibration pattern and the status of the sex toy 68 can be fed back to the haptic device 126 and/or the controller 62. Thus, the vibration of the sex toy 68 can be rendered by an actuator of the controller 62 and/or be rendered by the haptic device 126. In this way, the user 60 can feel the vibration pattern and status of the sex toy 68.
a-15 illustrate diagrams of sex toys having modules. Referring to
Referring to
a-11b illustrate diagrams of yet another embodiment of a sex toy having a detachable rabbit device. A sex toy 145 comprises a main body 146 and a vibrating rabbit device 147. The rabbit device 147 can be coupled to the main body 146, as shown in
One or more visual feedback indicators can be provided on the device 148 and/or the vibrational egg 149 by having components that can produce light. In an example embodiment, the visual feedback indicator can be one or more lighting elements on the device 148 and/or the vibrational egg 149. The lighting elements can be lighted to indicate a vibration status and patterns of the device 148 and/or the vibrational egg 149. In alternative embodiments, the device 148 and/or the vibrational egg 149 can have one or more lighting elements in the device 148 and/or the vibrational egg 149 to light up part of the device or the entire device. Alternatively, the visual feedback indicator of the device 148 and/or the vibrational egg 149 can be located on a wire connected to the respective device.
For instance, if there is a wired connection between the device 148 and the vibrational egg 149, then the visual feedback indicator can be located on the wired connection. This can aid a viewer of the device 148 and the vibrational egg 149 since some users prefer to insert the device and/or vibrational egg 149 into a bodily cavity in which the respective device may no longer be externally viewable. However, by having the visual feedback indicator located on the wired connection, a viewer can still view the visual feedback regardless of the user inserting the device 148 and/or vibrational egg 149 into the bodily cavity.
Coupling and decoupling of any modules of a sex toy can be performed by mechanical, electrical, adhesive, and/or other coupling and decoupling means. For instance, referring to
The connected modules 142 and 144 can be separated (e.g., pulled apart) to be decoupled. The separated modules 142 and 144 can independently have their own haptic mechanisms. A user may use each of the modules 142 and 144 of the sex toy 140 as separate haptic generating devices.
Referring to
The connected modules 152 and 154 can be pulled apart to be decoupled. The separated modules 152 and 154 can independently have their own haptic mechanisms. Thus, a user may use each of the modules 152 and 154 of the sex toy 150 as separate haptic generating devices.
Referring to
Furthermore, electric connections can be made between modules of a sex toy by various methods, including spring loaded surface contact connectors, metal connectors (e.g., electrical connectors for smart phone batteries), a multi-conductor cable (e.g., a phone jack, network cable, etc.).
a illustrates a diagram of an interactive entertainment system for engaging in virtual sexual activity. An interactive entertainment system for engaging in virtual sexual activity comprises a sex toy 172, a display device 174, and a controller 176. A user 170 can view a virtual avatar on the display device 174 and interact with the virtual avatar via the controller 176. The virtual avatar can have a human-like personality. The interactive entertainment system can control the sex toy 172 to provide stimulations to the user 170. The stimulations can be personalized to the user 170 as a function of the user's 170 behavior (e.g., sounds, gestures, etc.) and the input to the controller 176. Each user may have a different experience, i.e., receive different stimulations, since each user may have different user behavior and input to the interactive entertainment system.
A wired or wireless data connection can be established between the sex toy 172 and the controller 176. A wired or wireless data connection can also be established between the controller 176 and the display device 174. Additionally, a wired or wireless connection can be established between the sex toy 172 and the display device 174. The sex toy 172's stimulation can be controlled by either the interactive entertainment system and/or the controller 176. Furthermore, it is appreciated the interactive entertainment system does not require all three data connections to operate. It is apparent to person having ordinary skill in the art that other communication topologies can be used to implement the present disclosure.
b illustrates a diagram of a display device of an interactive entertainment system for engaging in virtual sexual activity. A display device 198 of an interactive entertainment system displays a virtual environment having a virtual partner 190, a virtual controller 196, and a virtual sex toy 192. The virtual partner (also referred to as an “avatar”) can be created to interact with a physical user (not shown) of the interactive entertainment system. The avatar 190 can be displayed with the virtual controller 196 and the virtual sex toy 192 to mimic interaction with a real user.
Through virtualization software, the virtual avatar 190 can have a simulated personality to make its own decisions. For instance, the virtual avatar's responses may differ depending upon different stimuli it receives. Furthermore, physical users may also experience different responses from the same avatar during different play sessions.
An avatar's response to the physical user depends on the physical user's inputs to the interactive entertainment system, including the input to the controller's touch interface, voice, gestures, etc. The interactive entertainment system may take the physical user's input through sensors on the sex toy or the controller of the physical user. For example, such sensors may be implemented by, but not limited to, accelerometers, gyros, touch sensors, force sensors, microphones, and/or other sensory devices. An avatar may respond to the physical user's input that is sensed by the sensors in various ways, or combinations thereof.
In a first method, the avatar responds with sound or bodily motion, the nature of which depends upon the stimulation that the user sent to the avatar via input sensors on the physical user's device. For example, the volume of the avatar's voice response may vary directly with the strength of the vibration input to the avatar by the physical user. The body motion of an avatar which reflects different excitement level depends on the pattern of the haptic effects input to the avatar by the user.
In a second method, the avatar sends stimulation commands to the sex toy of the physical user to stimulate the physical user. For example, the stimulation commands that are received by the physical user may vary directly with the strength of the vibration input to the avatar by the user. Other methods can also be implemented based on the disclosure by a person having ordinary skill in the arts.
Avatars may be programmed with one or more predefined personalities. For example, an avatar that is programmed to be more outgoing may produce stronger stimulations for a given stimulus from a physical user compared to a less outgoing avatar. In an example, an avatar's personality can be characterized as a function of inputs from the user: (output1, output2, output3, output4 . . . )=f(input1, input2, input3, input 4, etc.). The outputs could be the avatar's voice volume, avatar's body motion, and/or haptic effect patterns that are sent back to the physical user. Furthermore, factors that determine stimulations can be vibration frequencies, amplitudes, effect lengths, number of cycles of vibrations, and so on for any devices used by the physical user.
In another example, an avatar's personality can be heuristically trained by a physical user. At first, the avatar responds to physical a user's input with a randomly generated haptic effect (e.g., a seed haptic effect), which the physical user may approve or disapprove of. The next time such an input is provided to the avatar, the avatar may change one or more parameters of the effect, such as the frequency of the vibration. The physical user then approves of disapproves of this change, and the heuristic algorithm in use uses the user's physical approval or disapproval to calculate a preferred effect based on the physical user's taste.
The virtual avatar's behavior can also be extracted from a real user's so that the extracted avatar of this real user can participate in sexual play with another real person. Because this extracted avatar's algorithm (e.g., the way the extracted avatar thinks) is based on the perceived user behavior, the extracted avatar of the user will tend to react the same way to the same type of interaction during play.
In a further example, a virtual avatar's audio personality profile is created to mimic a physical user. For instance, the physical user's pitch and duration of the physical user's aural response during stimulation by the physical user's sex toy can be sampled and stored. This sampling is performed many times with differing haptic effects to get more auditory sounds from the physical user. The sound recordings can be stored as scatter values of multivariate data. These sounds recordings can be used to create a virtual avatar based on the physical user.
Once a virtual avatar is created based on a physical user, another user can engage in sexual play with the virtual avatar. The interactive entertainment system may interpolate an audio response from the collected data set of the actual physical user.
In yet another example, two users engage in sexual play with each other via the system. The interactive entertainment system tracks the parameters of the stimulation that one user applies to another user as a response to a previous effect from the other. From this data, a catalog of high probability responses to user inputs can be built as personality profiles for use with avatars for each user is stored. The interactive entertainment system may present future stimulation responses emulating the real user's for someone else interacting with that user's avatar.
After users have played in the interactive entertainment system, each of the users can be assigned ranking scores according to his/her performance in the play. Performance can be defined by many different characteristics, such as time spent in each play, number of effects sent in each play, number of people played within a certain period of time, etc. The scores can then be shared with other users in the interactive entertainment system.
For instance, assuming the display devices 174 and 184 are laptops with video cameras and are interconnected via a computer network, then the display devices 174 and 184 can transmit recorded video to each other via the computer network. Furthermore, the controllers 176 and 186 can be smart phones that have network capability and can be further connected to a sex toy. As such, commands from the controller 186 can be routed through the computer network to the controller 176. The controller 176 can receive those commands, and further route the commands to the sex toy 172. Likewise, commands from the controllers 176 can be routed through the computer network to the controllers 186. The controller 186 can receive those commands from the computer network, and further route those commands to the sex toy 182.
Thus, the first user 170 can view a video of the second user 180 on the display device 174. The first user 170 can also control the second user's sex toy 182 via the controller 176. The first user 170 can also control his/her sex toy 172 as well. Also, the second user 180 can view a video of the first user 170 on the display device 184. The second user 180 can control the first user's sex toy 172 via the controller 186. The second user 180 can also control his/her sex toy 182.
In this manner, the first user 170 and the second user 180 can be in different locations and interact with each other by controlling each other's sex toys 172 and 182 and/or viewing each other on their respective display devices 174 and 184. In this setup, it is very difficult for the first user 170 to know exactly what effect he/she has selected for the sex toy 182 of the second user 180, and vice versa. A feedback indicator, using either haptic or non-haptic methods, can be indicated to the remotely located user to identify which command was selected for the sex toy of the other user.
One example is to feed back the effect to the controllers that the users are using. For the first user 170, the control/effect signal is fed back to controller 176. This feedback can be haptic, so that the same or similar vibration effect selected for the sex toy 182 is sent back to the controller 176. The first user 170 can feel the vibration pattern that he/she is selected for the second user 180. The feedback can be non-haptic as well. The haptic/vibration pattern can be mapped to graphic patterns, which are provided to the user as feedback. For example, the light patterns, light brightness, color of the background screen, and/or other visual indicator can be used to indicate the vibration strength on device 182.
Another example is to feed back the haptic effect (or other stimulation) sent to the other user to the sending user. For instance, the first user 170 sends a haptic effect command from controller 176 to the sex toy 182 through a computer network. The haptic effect command can also be sent to the first user's sex toy 172 as well. Thus, the sex toy 172 may get haptic effect commands from both controllers 186 and 176. The haptic effect commands from both controllers 186 and 176 can be combined to generate a combined haptic effect from the sex toy 172. The first user 170 is able to feel the effects sent from the second user 180 and the effects he or she have inputted. Likewise, the same can be said when the second user 180 sends haptic effect commands to the sex toy of the first user 170.
In alternative embodiments, one user may have control of both of the sex toys 172 and 182 at the same time. For instance, the first user 170 may have control of both of the sex toys 172 and 182 at the same time. Control can be switched over from one controller 176 to another controller 186, and vice versa. This can be referred to as a sharing mode. Basically, the first user 170 is sharing the effect that he/she is creating for the second user 180, and vice versa. In this case, the sex toys 172 and 182 should have roughly the same haptic effect (or other stimulation) that the first user 170 selected.
In another embodiment, a unidirectional remote sex activity with shared additional data information can be performed. In this manner, the second user 180 may only control the sex toy 172 and not have the sex toy 182 in operation. Thus, the commands for the sex toys are unidirectional, i.e., from the second user 180 to the first user's sex toy 172.
Since the session of one user can be recorded and stored by the interactive entertainment system, the interaction of users can be time delayed and played back at a later time even if the session between users do not overlap. Thus, users of the interactive entertainment system can interact with each other at different points in time.
Furthermore, during a time delayed interaction session, the delayed user can be a virtual avatar based on a physical user. For instance, assuming user A is a real person and an avatar is established based on user B. The avatar of user B can also have a virtual sex toy and a virtual controller to use. In real life, user A and user B can be partners (e.g., husband and wife, girlfriend and boyfriend, etc.). However, they may not be synced time-wise in their sexual desire. For example, user A may want to engage in sexual play in the morning, while user B may not be present at that time. Thus, user A decides to engage in sexual play with user B's avatar in the system. The more user A uses the interactive entertainment system, the better we can refine an avatar for user A. Thus, when user B wants to engage in sexual play later and user A is not available, user B can then engage in sexual play with user A's avatar. In this way, users can not only engage in sexual play with each other from different locations, but can also engage in sexual play with each other via avatars at different points in time.
Avatars may also be generated to approximate the appearance and/or characteristics of real people, including movie stars, sports stars and audio-video (“AV”) stars, so that users can interact with these avatars.
Referring to
The privacy indicator 204 can be a pattern of LED lights, an animation, an icon, a color, a pattern, and/or any other visual indicator. For instance, if the privacy indicator 204 is a patch of green on the display device 200, then this can mean that the privacy settings are not set, meaning all areas of the interactive video are shown. If the privacy indicator 204 is a patch of red color on the display device 200, then this can mean that the privacy settings have been set by the user and that certain areas of the interactive video are shown are blurred or blacked out due to privacy settings.
A pattern recognition algorithm can be applied to track and blur those selected areas to protect the user's identity. For example, the selected areas can include the user's face, a certain part of user's body, a certain area of the room, a furniture item or other object within the video, and/or any other predefined area or environment. The blurring process can be processed on the user's device before sending out video data via a network connection to assure privacy protection. The transmitted video having the blurred areas can then be distributed online through the internet. Thus, even if the communication on the internet is hacked, the user does not need to worry about their privacy being leaked since the transmitted video has the preselected areas blurred for the user's protection. Users have the option to blur different areas (e.g., a small or large area) on the screen in order to achieve different levels of privacy protection.
In other embodiments, the blurring process can also be applied at other points in the data communications. For instance, blurring can be performed on a server that forwards a privacy protected video to another user for viewing. Furthermore, blurring can also be applied on the privacy protected video at the other user's device.
a-21b illustrate diagrams of other examples of a device displaying an interactive video having a privacy control setting. In one example and referring to
In another example, the user 202 may not need to choose any area of the interactive video on the display screen 200 to blur. The interactive entertainment system can automatically blur the user's face (and/or other predefined areas in the interactive video that can be determined using pattern recognition) so that the user's privacy is protected.
In another example and referring to
In other embodiments, the user 202 can use a controller (e.g., a smart phone) or a display device (e.g., a laptop) that has a camera to record video of himself or herself. Typically smartphones and laptops have at least one or two embedded cameras that allow for recording videos. In addition, the multiple cameras 230 can be paired with a user's smart phone and/or laptop to record video. In this manner, video data is sent to the smartphone or laptop from the video cameras. The smartphone or laptop can receive that video data and further process that data before being routed via a computer network to another user's display device.
The sex toy can use one or more eccentric rotating mass (“ERM”) vibrators to provide haptic stimulation. In this case, the amplitude and the frequency can be coupled to each other. Thus only the amplitude or the frequency of the sex toy can be adjusted at the same time.
If a sex toy uses an actuator whose frequency and amplitude can be independently controlled, then the GUI can have separate graphs to control each. For instance, the user can input a vibration frequency profile to be applied to the sex toy, and then independently input a profile for the amplitude of the actuator of the sex toy.
Referring to
Referring to
By having the ability to perform detailed editing of the frequency and amplitude of the one or more actuators of a sex toy in the time domain, users will have the ability to design a precise haptic effect. In particular, the users can edit the amplitude and frequency graphs (illustrated in
In another example, a GUI having a simpler graph can be presented to adjust the frequency and amplitude at the same time, or use other adjustment paradigms. For instance, a strength unit that is a combination of an amplitude unit and frequency unit of the one or more actuators of the sex toy can be used. Thus, the user only needs to be concerned about the strength of the haptic feedback.
Referring to
Referring to
During online sexual activity with a remote partner, virtual sexual activity with an avatar, or self-stimulation activities, the ability to choose a background haptic effect set is provided. This effect set is played to the user or his/her partner while there are no inputs from the users to the devices as a baseline on which the users can add more effects, or as a stand-in for user-triggered effects during periods of no user input
In most interactions like this, effects are only initiated by users. Typically, no effects are present if there are no user inputs from the user. However, for sexual activities, it is important that the users not be overly distracted by having to constantly provide input to the system to produce effects. Therefore, automatic playback of a baseline set of effects, such as “background” effects may be desired. Thereby, users are engaged during periods of no remote user input. The users can also be enabled to choose different sets of background effects, as well as disable the feature. The system can also simple choose to repeat the last haptic effect instead of playing the “background” effect.
When haptic effects are triggered by the user (either remote user or local user), e.g., a user input, various methods can be used to account for background effects and user input. For instance, when there is user input, background effects are stopped and the interactive entertainment system only applies the haptic effects triggered by the user. Alternatively, if background effects are playing and user input received, background effects and the user-triggered effects can be combined together using a mapping method.
An example of a background effect can be a baseline heartbeat-like haptic effect that is continuously played by all devices connected to the interactive entertainment system. The baseline heartbeat-like haptic effect can provide to users of the interactive entertainment system with a minimal amount of stimulation, when there are no user inputs to the interactive entertainment system. When the users trigger effects, the user inputted effects are played back on top of the background heartbeat effect or the background heartbeat effect can stop and then the user inputted effects are then played.
Referring to
The position of area 256 may be fixed, or may change depending on the GUI design. For example, the center area 256 can be assigned to any area on the touchscreen by having the user first touch the touchscreen for a predefined period of time at a certain area to set that certain area as the center area 256. Furthermore, that center area 256 can be reset by the user to a default position or to a user defined position on the touchscreen. The locations of the other areas can then be updated relative to the set location of the center area 256. The number of areas, size of areas, locations of areas that surround the center area 256 can also be different depending on the GUI design. In this example, there are four distinct areas, but there can be any number of areas around the center area.
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A user can select a type of input style for the mobile handset 250 for receiving user input. Thus, a user can customize the user interface on the mobile handset 250. For example, the size, shape, and the position of each button can be adjusted by the user.
The constructed sex toy can measure biometric information and generate haptic feedback based on the biometric information. The sex toy can have embedded sensors to measure biometric information of the user, such as blood pressure, blood oxygen level, heart rate, hardness of the penis, and excitement level of the user. Those parameters can be used by the system to decide what the most suitable haptic effect (or other stimulations) for the user in his/her current state.
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The module 305 can be a main control and power module containing in the chassis a secondary battery with its cells distributed around the axis of the chassis for providing power to the other modules, and a control board for controlling the various operating aspects of the device. The control board has a microcontroller present to manage communications and direct the other modules' activities. The control board also can have a bluetooth transceiver (or other wireless transceiver) for communications between the microcontroller and an external computing device such as a mobile device held by the user. An external barrel jack on the end of the module furthest from the other modules provides a location for input power from an external power source to recharge the internal power pack. An external microphone located near the barrel jack captures ambient sound to be recorded by the microcontroller. Finally, a pressure switch rigidly mounted to the chassis near the barrel jack allows the user to input some commands to the device, such as changing power states or starting and stopping communications. The circular face of module 305 closest to the module 304 houses the male thread with tip-ring-sleeve (“TRS”) plug for mechanical and electrical connectivity to the other modules. Communications to and from the module 305 occur over a single wire protocol on the signal connection in the TRS connected lines.
The module 304 can contain a temperature sensor for sensing ambient temperature to report to the microcontroller in the module 305 for use as biometric information to be fed back to the system as a user parameter used in the calculation of haptic effects or personality profiling. It passes power through the modules from the module 305 to the module 303, as well as injecting temperature data onto the signal line.
The module 303 can house an ERM coaxially in the center of its chassis and a high definition haptic actuator parallel to the chassis axis, as well as a microcontroller for decoding haptic commands from the main microcontroller in the module 305. The module 303 passes power and signals through itself from the module 304 to the module 302.
The modules 302 and 301 can each house an ERM coaxially in the center of their chassis. In addition, the module 301 can house a pressure sensor which senses force exerted on the outer surface of the module 301 by the vaginal walls for use as biometric information to be fed back to the system as a user parameter used in the calculation of haptic effects or personality profiling. The modules 302 and 301 each contain a microcontroller for decoding haptic commands from the main microcontroller in module 305.
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The dimensions of sex toys can be important since different people have different size preferences. Some people might prefer a sex toy with a smaller diameter, while others may prefer larger diameter sex toys. The sex toy 340 can have an internal mechanism for changing the cross sectional width of the module.
For instance, the sex toy 340 can have an elastic cover 342, hard shells 344, and an oval center 346. The elastic cover 342 is disposed on the outside of the sex toy 340. The hard shells 344 can be expanded by rotating the oval center 346. When the oval center 346 between the hard shells 344 (see
When the oval center 346 is rotated ninety degrees (see
Various diameter sizes of the module can be found between these two states by keeping the oval center 346 between these states. Thus, the diameter of the sex toy 340 can be varied. A motor can be embedded in the sex toy 340 to rotate the oval center 346 to change the relative position of the oval center 346 to the hard shells 344.
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Depending on the design goal, different materials can be chosen to achieve different hardness, thus different isolations can be achieved. For example, if a harder mechanical connection between a certain two of the actuators are desired, then a harder material can be placed between those two actuators. However, if a softer mechanical connection between another certain two of the actuators of the sex toy are also desired, then a softer material can be placed between those two actuators.
If two of the actuators 406a-406c are actuated at the same time, followed by another two of the actuators 406a-406c at the same time, a strong vibration with a feeling of an impact can be created. By doing different vibration combinations of the motors, many different stimulation patterns can be created. For example, if all three actuators 406a-406c are vibrated at the same time, then that can produce a very strong effect. If the three actuators 406a-406c are vibrated one by one in a sequence, a sensation of directional motion can be created.
Users have different preferences for length of sexual activity. Sometimes a user might prefer a short and quick orgasm, while at other times he/she might want a longer time to orgasm. By designing the stimulation pattern, the user can be provided with different stimulations that either can lead to a short time to orgasm or a longer time to orgasm. In an example, a time to orgasm can be selected to last twice as long as the standard time to orgasm. This selection may result in a stimulation that has 75% amplitude of the stimulation for the standard time to orgasm and 25% longer time between vibration cycles of the stimulation for the standard time to orgasm.
The same method can be applied to ERM (eccentric rotating mass) motors. The characteristic of each ERM motor can be represented by a line. Referring to
However, by combining several motors with different characteristics together, you can create effects that are much richer. For instance, lines 446-450 represent frequency/amplitude characteristics of three different ERM motors. When combined together in one sex toy, the effect that a user can create is much richer (with respect to range in amplitude and/or frequency) than the effect of a sex toy with only one motor in it.
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The wearable sex toy 472 may be connected with a data enabled smart device (e.g., smartphone, tablet, or other mobile smart device (not shown)) to transmit or receive commands for the wearable sex toy 472. The data enabled smart device can serve to route data to and from the sex toy and remote users. For instance, other people on the internet can control her sex toy 472 if she allows them to do so by having a connection between her data enabled smart device and the internet. One day she might want to allow ten people that she personally doesn't know to control her wearable sex toy 472 while she is shopping. She can also share some of her additional data in real time to those ten people to increase their excitement. Those additional data includes location data, walking speed data, temperature data, video, audio, etc. Vice versa, in some other situations, one person can be set to control several users' toys at the same time. The smartphone can receive or transmit that data or commands, and communicate that data and commands between the smart device and the wearable sex toy 472.
As long as the parties involved in online sex activities are at different locations, there can be latency in the information transfer. There are many different factors that affect the latency. For example, the rise time of the actuator, the communication latency between the sex toy with the mobile device/computer, the communication latency between the two users over long distances, and the system delay in the mobile phone/computer system. Once all the delays are added up, it can become too much for a good user experience.
A method of solving this issue is to extract information from the inputs of user A and send high level commands to user B instead of sending every piece of information from A to B. If accelerometers and gyros are used to capture the motion of user A, the detailed accelerometer and gyro data can be sent to the other user B in real time. However, this method can lead to latency delay.
If there is some delay in the system in the range that a user can discern but otherwise moderate (usually larger than 100 ms and less than 300 ms to 500 ms), the input data can be first processed to reduce the amount of data required to be sent over the data connection before being sent to user B to achieve a smaller delay.
If the delay in the system is too large (larger than 500 ms), then the system collects data until user A finishes his/her set of motions, and then processes the data which is sent as a high level command to user B. The high level command may comprise a message describing the drawing of a circle, or a hand shaking motion. The user experience of the interaction will also be changed in this case. User B is informed that he/she will only receive the feedback after user A finishes his/her set of motions.
For example, during the time user A is making a set of inputs on his mobile device, user B will get either a certain pattern of vibration or/and graphic indication on the GUI that user A is going to send something big (e.g., a large data set for commands). After user A is finished his/her input, the effect gets sent to user B and user B will get a set of effect train that was created by user A. In essence, the users can receive compressed combinations of user inputs instead of getting real time feedback.
While the disclosure has been described with reference to certain embodiments, it is to be understood that the disclosure is not limited to such embodiments. Rather, the disclosure should be understood and construed in its broadest meaning, as reflected by the following claims. Thus, these claims are to be understood as incorporating not only the apparatuses, methods, and systems described herein, but all those other and further alterations and modifications as would be apparent to those of ordinary skilled in the art.
This application claims priority from the following patent applications: a provisional patent application entitled “Method, Apparatus, and System for Human Interaction” filed on May 16, 2014 and having an Application No. 61/994,818; and a provisional patent application entitled “Methods of Providing Feedback During Remote Sex Activities” filed on Jun. 17, 2014 and having an Application No. 62/013,486. Said applications are incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61994818 | May 2014 | US | |
| 62013486 | Jun 2014 | US |
