The truth about sex robots: Panic, pleasure and a candlelit dinner

Dr. Oz isn't happy about the future of sex. The day I'm scheduled to appear on his show, the television physician and Oprah protege has assembled a cast of victims and villains that includes a college communications major who caught chlamydia fr...

There’s a new sex robot in town: Say hello to Solana

It's been just short of a year since I locked eyes with Harmony, RealDoll's first sex robot, at her home in Southern California. It was an arresting experience that has remained cemented in memory. In that moment, I suddenly understood the Uncanny Va...

Blow-up dolls, vibrators and the sex robot’s uninspired origins

Just a few days before Christmas 2015, I found myself staring down the silicone mouth hole of the "world's first blowjob robot." I'd set out to find the future of sex but quickly realized that: 1) The Autoblow 2+ wasn't a robot at all, and 2) I'd be...

RealDoll’s first sex robot took me to the uncanny valley

During my four-hour visit to the birthplace of the RealDoll, the frighteningly life-like full-body sex toy, I've seen mounds of silicone vaginas, sheets of detached nipples, headless women hanging from meat hooks, a 2-foot penis and skulls with remov...

Ron Jeremy predicts porn’s … present?

When I met porn superstar Ron Jeremy for the first time he was driving a Saturn Ion and sporting a flip phone. He carried a cassingle for his 1996 rap collaboration "Freak of the Week" and talked excitedly about the 1980s like they were yesterday. Ro...

The Novint Falcon: Haptic joystick turned futuristic sex toy

I'm standing in the studio at Engadget's San Francisco headquarters, holding the remains of a pulverized, cream-filled doughnut. The pastry's sticky, off-white filling clings to the shaft of a bright pink vibrator, taped to the end of a silver, cone-...

Alien sex tapes, robot rape and the evolution of consent

A little over a week ago Engadget's EIC and I had dinner with a couple of friends at a Chinatown Thai restaurant in L.A. As I sipped on a Singha Slurpee, our dinner companions, Claire Evans and Jona Bechtolt of the band Yacht, gave us an off-the-reco...

A viral VR sex suit and what it says about us

He'd had a terrible morning and an even worse afternoon. Exhausted by human interaction, Roger returned home, eager to slam a beer, throw on his bathrobe and lie back in his big leather recliner while Rhonda gave him one of her signature hand jobs....