Touching Tomorrow: High Tech Sensory Toy Heralds a New Era for Synthetic Companions

M. Christian
5 Min Read

TruTru might be just what we want—and desire

TruTru, a gelatinous-like, tactile-responsive companion toy, can do everything from growing warmer or cooler, changing color and, according to the project site, “simulate fleeting and shifting sensations, like the ripple of water, the patter of rain, the swish of wind, the flutter of butterfly wings, or the gentle rhythm of shifting pulses.”

As envisioned by JUE Design and Research studio, in conjunction with the Intelligent Human-Machine Mechanical Interface Lag at Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University, TruTru is “a loveable friend that offers not just haptic sensations, but emotional companionship in users’ everyday life.”

Alas, it isn’t cleare how TruTru is supposed to accomplish this, plus serving as a mindfulness and meditation guide, as well as a sleep aid.

If TruTru actually functions as promised, imagine with me how the artificial companion industry could adapt its technology to achieve mind-glowing—and erotically exciting—fascinating new options. 

And I’m feeling good 

TruTru will supposedly have optional, straplike arms, allowing it “to be worn, clipped, or carried in various ways, adapting fluidly to everyday movement.”

However, touch—or rather its haptic capacity to replicate not only the aforementioned fluttering butterfly wings but “natural materials like stone, wood, sand, feather, shell, etc., as well as familiar man-made surfaces such as fabric, rubber, ceramic, etc.” is how TruTru might evolve from a pleasant novelty to a potential sextech marvel.

RECOMMENDED READ: Hello Dolly: Today’s Customized Synthetic Companions Set the Stage for Tomorrow’s Pleasures

The project’s site is scant on the technological details.  Hypothesizing, it might rely on a kind of electrostimulation to physiologically mimic sensations, like how a low voltage charge applied across a patch of skin can sometimes seem slippery.

Sound is another possibility. For instance employing subsonic, on one end of the scale, hypersonic vibrations to generate similarly realistic tactile impressions. 

Touch me, touch me, touch me

No matter TruTru’s final design, its technology is likely to end up, legally or otherwise, paperclipped by the sextech and artificial companion industries.

Imagine state-of-the-art pleasurable playthings capable of near-instantaneously growing hotter or colder, rougher or slicker, more or less electrically stimulating, capable of emulating fur, stone, metal, flesh, or a hundreds other substances.

Even if TruTru’s sensation mimicry is never fully realized, merely having temperature or color changing sextoys or artificial companions offers all sorts of wildly erotic possibilities.

Just as today’s best flat screens—produced by South Korea’s LG Display Co., as reported by The Korea Economic Daily—can be twisted, stretched, and folded, consider how a TruTru-like toy might be covered in a likewise twistable, stretchable, and foldable outer skin.

Want to change your artificial companion’s face, skin tone, or have it seductively flow from one color to the next?  How about having your futuristic sextoy’s surface double as a high resolution screen for watching whatever turns you on?  Or why not add in some super fast networking so your smart companion or toy would resemble your partner—regardless of how thousands of miles may separate you.

Hold onto your dreams

TruTru may never be anything but an implausible, high-tech fantasy—though if rapid, frequently unpredictable technological charge is anything to go by—it, or any product with colorful, haptic, temperature changing capabilities—could still reshape pleasure technologies like nothing before or since.

In fact, the idea of a cute little spontaneously metamorphic, mindfulness, meditation, sleep, and/or friendly buddy may be what jump-starts that reshaping.  

After all, just a few paragraphs back we offered some interesting possibilities, with plenty of others should we—or you or all of us—put our minds to it.

So rather than scoffing at imaginative concepts like TruTru, instead look at them as creative jumping off points towards other, perhaps more realistic, breakthroughs to come.  

For as everyone knows, dreams—erotic or otherwise—can be fun on their own but also may be just what we need to make the real world a better, happier, and more fulfilling place.

Image Sources: Depositphotos

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M.Christian (they/them) loves nothing better than exploring the intersections of sex and technology—and speculating on the future of both. A highly regarded erotica writer they have six novels,12 collections, 100+ short stories, and 25 anthologies as an editor to their name. Their non-fiction regularly appears in many sites, but they're most proud of being a regular contributor to Future of Sex. Of their erotic fiction, Tristan Taormino said that “M.Christian is a literary stylist of the highest caliber: smart, funny, frightening, sexy—there's nothing [they] can't write about… and brilliantly.” Reflecting their unique ability to sympathetically and convincingly write for a range of genders and sexual orientations, their stories have appeared in multiple editions of Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, The Mammoth Books of Erotica, and others. Their collection of gay erotic fiction, Dirty Words, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. While a majority of their stories have been collected into books like Dirty Words, their fondness for combining sex and science fiction is clearly evident in collections that include Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Better Than The Real Thing, Skin Effect Effect, Bachelor Machine, and Hard Drive: The Best Sci-Fi Erotica of M.Christian. As a novelist, M.Christian’s versatility is on full display with Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Brushes, Painted Doll; and the somewhat controversial queer BDSM/horror/thrillers Finger's Breadth, and Me2. M.Christian has worked on the industry’s production side as an Associate Publisher for Renaissance E Books and as a Publisher for Digital Parchment Services. The latter dedicated to celebrating the works of science-fiction legends such as William Rotsler, Jerome Bixby, Jody Scott, Arthur Byron Cover, Ernest Hogan, and James Van Hise. Covering topics like BDSM safety, sexual education, senior sexuality concerns, queer and gender issues, plus reviewing a variety of sex tech products, M.Christian’s non-fiction has appeared on sites like Kinkly, Tickle.Life, Sexpert, Queer Majority, Sex for Every Body, and—of course—their ongoing work for Future of Sex. If there’s anything M.Christian enjoys more than writing, it’s teaching. A featured presenter, sometimes with their friend Ralph Greco Jr, at national sex and BDSM events, they have lectured on kink play (with an emphasis on safety), polyamory, boosting sexual creativity, and erotica writing--for beginners or those wanting to go pro. M.Christian is a cohost on two popular sex-education podcasts: Love’s Outer Limits with Dr. Amy Marsh and Licking Non-Vanilla with Ralph Greco, Jr.