The "new" TrueCompanion.

[PsychoKirby]

Well, it seems our good friend Douglas Hines is back with a brand-new bottle of snake oil. I signed up to receive e-mail updates from TrueCompanion back before it was clear it was all a big scam. Here's what the e-mail says it can do now.

A New Beautiful New Face
Light Design - 60 pounds
Motion of Legs, Head, Hips and Body to Create Outstanding Experience (see website for demo)
Hands Which Can Grip
Enhanced Detail of Skin and Lifelike Feel
Expanded Artificial Intelligence and Communication Abilities
Ability to Rent Her in Select Markets Initially and Additional Markets in the Future
Expanded Worldwide Affiliate Reseller Program with Aggressive Margins for Revenue Sharing
Limited Time Reduction in Price, Down Below $7,000 (through this Sunday) - We also have reduced the cost to place your order to 1/4 of the original amount we required!
You can also have virtual sex online through her with one or more people!

A link to his blog, with a "video demonstration."

A few things to note:

-Roxxxy's movements consist of nothing but moving her head up and down and thrusting forward and back. While it's definitely better than a static figure, this is still just simple animatronics. It's nothing as innovative as Doug claims Roxxxy is. Disney figured out how to do this in the 60s. Hell, you can make a machine that moves repeatedly like that yourself for a small fraction of what it would take to buy a TrueCompanion.

-When he removes Roxxxy's wig, he reveals that she still has a big gaping hole where her neck should be.

-While we do see a picture of Roxxxy's new face, which I admit is an improvement (although something like that shouldn't be a problem to begin with), note that we never actually see her face in the video demonstration itself. I wouldn't be surprised if that was just the head of a RealDoll or something.

-Still no demonstration of her super-duper advanced AI.

How much longer is this stupid joke going to keep up?

[Keizo]

That new face is definitely a HUGE improvement but I have to concur that we have not seen it attached. The motorization is a huge step as well and the big gaping hole in her neck can actually be a turn-on to some. The outlandish claims... are still there.

Regardless, I will say that at least there is some visible progress. Even I have to acknowledge this, although I would tread very carefully given the circumstances. Now that the documentary is out, though, the pressure is definitely on to deliver.

[gmiceo]

» Ability to Rent Her in Select Markets Initially and Additional Markets in the Future

Am I the only one that finds the idea of reusing a sex toy by other people as disgusting?

[ShiroChan]

I'm pretty excited about the progress they've already made and I'm looking forward to the "Rocky" counterpart (I believe that's what their calling it). It's true that they have a long way to go yet, but it is certainly better than a doll.

They need to get together with the creator of this robot, mobility is kind of a must for me in a sexbot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpO57Nlt ... re=related

The facial expressions of this robot are amazing, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIuF5Dcs ... re=related

This one is a good blend of motion, expression, and dynamic response to the human voice. She seems to struggle with accents though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3tcSlWL ... re=related

[Gorgo]

» Ability to Rent Her in Select Markets Initially and Additional Markets in the Future

Am I the only one that finds the idea of reusing a sex toy by other people as disgusting?

Yes, it does sound quite disgusting, but one has to look at the other end of the scale.

Not everyone would be able to afford something so complex at the start of the game, so the chances are there that we'll see the first version of a "gynoid brothel" develop so people who are willing to splurge some money for a limited time with such companions. From here -- as popularity and demand increases -- prices would then either go down as technology hits a developmental plateau or it will stay roughly the same as funds are poured into R&D to improve the technology to the point where fully autonomous units will develop.

Of course, as a side branch to this development, there would have to be safety regulations put into place to ensure the transmission of diseases and the like are kept to a bare minimum.

[Asato]

You don't have to be so rude about it, I mean at least they have a product and they are clearly working to improve it and respond to feedback they're getting

[dale coba]

Asato, you should see what it actually looks like when this gang savages a fool and liar for claiming much more bot than they can deliver - not in this case, but search the old threads and you'll realize that the ideas above were critical, but constructive.

"Cultural differences" might be said to be at work, in that Gorgo and Kishin have been here since before there even was a here, so they talk like... FC members: impatient for our toys!

- Dale Coba

edit: clumsily, I failed to see the older origin of the thread. The most recent posts seemed to make sense without anything else; but it changes the picture of who might be criticizing whom.

[Gorgo]

"Cultural differences" might be said to be at work, in that Gorgo and Kishin have been here since before there even was a here, so they talk like... FC members: impatient for our toys!

LOL! I don't think I'm that old, Dale!

[dale coba]

LOL! I don't think I'm that old, Dale!

In the timeline of the F.C. Universe,

you've been here since the first suns ignited.

- Dale Coba,
arrived along with the proto-stellar dust accretion disks.

[Gorgo]

LOL! I don't think I'm that old, Dale!

In the timeline of the F.C. Universe,

you've been here since the first suns ignited.

- Dale Coba,
arrived along with the proto-stellar dust accretion disks.

Gee, I guess I am.

[gmiceo]

I admit to being rude. I stand behind everything I have said too. He may eventually create a product, and this community normally encourages anyone that gives it a shot. We can't expand the robotic exploration without some failures. However, his manner and the way he presented his creation (at the least was deceptive) felt like a scam. When called on it he never produced any information that could back up a single one of his claims. There have been plenty of people to date (and will be in the future) that attempt to rip off those with a particular fetish and he is one of those IMHO.

[dale coba]

There's also a manic enthusiasm at work with many self-promoters, an unwarranted belief in themselves.
Like most of today's Republican presidential candidates, they can be fools and morons first, then scammers of others as a by-product of their own delusion.

Not a con, not a connivance; but still, transparent and annoying as hell.
Bad for all who care about this field.

- Dale Coba

[ShiroChan]

Well there is certainly room to grow. Personally, I try to stay positive and hopeful, but I'm not going to lay down a few grand for a TrueCompanion unless they can get a mobile version. Part of the appeal, for me, is the high level of technology.

Odd thing is in most science fiction android brothels are quite common.

I think its the difference between a high quality, manufactured synthetic person that can actively attend to keeping itself clean and sanitized. Versus a robotic doll that has to be hand cleaned by people who probably wont be getting top dollar to do it.

Of course with the technology to build such innovative sexual surrogates comes the idea that civilization will have advanced to the point of having less disease, cleaner standards and more way to screen and treat diseases.

I don't know. Look at Gigolo Jane or Gigolo Joe from A.I. Would you turn that down, knowing it probably had sex with a half a dozen people each day?

Me personally, I would have to bring in my own sanitary cleaning supplies and do a lil scrubbing before I did a little pushin.

Speaking of Gigolo Joe, I would definitely enjoy some time with him no matter how many partners he has. A model like him would likely have advanced sanitary precautions. On the other hand, would I rent a True Companion? Not likely. I agree with Kishin, having someone clean a robotic doll who probably doesn't get paid enough is a decade away from a synthetic person. I think I'll wait until they make something that is more android than doll, and hopefully includes a self cleaning feature.

It seems that progress is being made, slowly, but there is progress nonetheless.

[The Egg]

Oh, come on you guys. At least someone is actually working on this. It's not going to happen all at once, there will be many minor steps along the way to a usable, desirable fembot. Think of the first automobiles -- they weren't even as fast as a horse! Now the entire world is paved with tarmac to facilitate motorized culture, which is ubiquitous and essential.

Also, I don't see any of you starting and funding your own companies, building a fembot prototype from scratch, and publicly presenting it for the entire internet to scrutinize. Easy to be critical from an ivory tower, not so much when you're down in the trenches.

This guy gets enough flak from the millions of philistines who still think this sort of thing is "weird" and "unnatural", he doesn't need it from his target demographic as well. Would you rather he just gave up? That's shooting yourself in the foot. Maybe lowering your own absurd expectations and making the effort to be tactful rather than dismissive would help this project along.

[dale coba]

Easy to be critical from an ivory tower, not so much when you're down in the trenches.

So, we're thinking critically from the tower, while he's struggling to do the same in the trenches?

Yeah, that's our point.

- Dale Coba

[The Egg]

we're thinking critically from the tower

No you're not. You're whining about something that will take years, possibly decades, to achieve, because the first guy to make any headway on it didn't deliver your way-too-high expectations the first time out. Also, you're doing so for largely irrational reasons. Critical thinking would be seeing this experiment as a stepping stone to a larger eventual goal and trying to be constructively supportive of it regardless of the initial flaws, rather than risk driving away the person trying to make your dreams come a little closer to reality. What you're doing is called "biting the hand that feeds you".

Instead you sling all manner of vitriol and rhetoric because it turns out facts haven't caught up with fantasy. Congratulations, internet; you've figured out a way to assume entitlement about things that don't actually exist yet.

And again, if you can do better? By all means, post your schematics and YouTube videos of your work. I'm quite eager to see how well anyone on this board can do in the areas of gyroscopic pneumatics, voice and face recognition, conversational AI, bipedal plantigrade mobilization, power distribution, etc. etc. You're so smart, show us how it's done, boss!

Frankly I don't understand the incredible levels of haterade for this Hines guy, allegedly based on what are standard marketing strategies we all see every day for every product we buy.

[dale coba]

Easy to be critical from an ivory tower, not so much when you're down in the trenches.

breaking that sentence down...

"Easy to be critical..."

- an accusation, that we are criticizing (unfairly - implied, not illustrated in your messa).
- and implying that the criticisms are false statements?

"... not so much when you're down in the trenches."

- the alternative perspective you offer, not easy for the inventor himself to be "critical", down in the trenches.

Of course, why would he be critical of his own work?
To be constructive, of course.

You were ranting too hard when you wrote that sentence;
you made contradictory uses of the word "critical"
- once to mean an easy and wrong thing done poorly,
and the other to mean a worthy and difficult act of introspection and analysis.

Your point, the one you meant to make, applies only to the inventors capable of some degree of reflection.
The Ed Wood, jr.'s of the world, those who drank all their own Kool-Aid,
they stink up the reputation of those mature and sane enough not to wildly inflate their claims beyond reality.

It all boils down to one infuriating observation - you don't seem to like the concept of criticism.
You have seen it used as a weapon, to belittle - and you are right, that people often use rhetorical tools to get what they want out of a conversation, rather than to get to the truth (which is necessarily constructive, if often unwelcomed bad news).

Sorry if that has been your experience.
May you spend more time in better company.

- Dale Coba

[gynoneko]

I don't think this is going in a good direction. First, I understand that you Egg doesn't want to criticize someone who is actually doing something when there are so few people out there who are doing anything. I also recognize that Dale is saying. The way I see it is while this guy might be doing something, he is doing the wrong thing. It's like saying we need to make cars safer, so lets invent a car with no brakes.
Yes this guy is doing something, but what he has done is false advertising when there are other people who are actually putting more effort into what they are doing. I think it comes down to how we see him.
Some of us, like Egg, sees him as a pioneer trying to make money and better evolve the technology with progressive advances. It might look bad now, but eventually it will get better.
Others, like Dale, sees him as a charlatan, a man trying to sell overpriced toys that don't do what he advertises they are supposed to do. He makes the entire industry and ASFR community look bad.

I think that is where this is going... and as for me... I see this guy as misguided. He thinks he is making a quality product, he might be putting some effort into it, but it isn't nearly enough effort, and the products are not good quality at all. Besides, she looks like she has ALS.

[The Egg]

You were ranting too hard when you wrote that sentence;
you made contradictory uses of the word "critical"

Now you're just being pedantic.

Also, if you think this is me "ranting too hard"? Brother, this is barely a scrimmage by my standards of rant. That's like telling Galactus to leave some room for dessert.

It all boils down to one infuriating observation - you don't seem to like the concept of criticism.

That's a mighty big assumption, partner, and an unwarranted one. Rest assured that when I see something worthy of vitriol and scorn, you can count on me to deliver the starkest and most vicious assaults of all. I just don't see anything worthy of that level of anger here. This whole situation is about a guy from Jersey trying to make fuck-toys, which means my rage level has a built-in limiter. I'll allow that he almost certainly thinks better of himself and his accomplishments than anyone else does, but so what? Again, where's your self-designed sex robot? The Hines model is crude and amateurish but it's something, not nothing.

Sorry if that has been your experience.
May you spend more time in better company.

I hope so too. I really do.

[dale coba]

You were ranting too hard when you wrote that sentence;
you made contradictory uses of the word "critical"

Now you're just being pedantic.

Hardly! Read what you wrote

Easy to be critical from an ivory tower, not so much when you're down in the trenches.

From the tower to the trench, the subject changed meaning,
from a complaint against criticism, to an appreciation of the difficulties of creating.

Again, where's your self-designed sex robot? The Hines model is crude and amateurish but it's something, not nothing.

This line of reasoning is alien to me, and broadly anti-academic.
One must not critique, analyze, and criticize another's work unless they've tried to walk in his shoes?
I don't know why you would think that way.
It's not how we read book reviews, or choose one tablet computer over another, or blog.

- Dale Coba

(I'm fine to walk away from this at any time.
I've said my piece.)

[The Egg]

This line of reasoning is alien to me, and broadly anti-academic.
One must not critique, analyze, and criticize another's work unless they've tried to walk in his shoes?
I don't know why you would think that way.

Generally because I find people to be deluded, self-aggrandizing egotists who think far more of their own opinions than will ever be warranted, based on lots of experience.

Now you're ascribing positions to me that I never took! My point was that you have no idea what it takes to make your own fembot and that makes your criticism inherently non-constructive, despite your promises to the contrary. You're perfectly content to live in a world of fantasy, as most people on this board are -- and that's fine, I'm not insulting that or insinuating there's something wrong with it. However, you also seem to think that gives you authority to comment on matters in the real world, which is just plain incorrect. That's no different from video game junkies who complain that their favorite game doesn't have multiplayer, or better save points, or whatever. Playing video games for decades does not make you a video game programmer, and complaining about it to your friend sitting next to you doesn't help the game become better.

For the record, I actually did try to make a fembot once -- a very crude one, inferior even to the Hines model, using mannequin parts and a Mini-ITX motherboard. It was extremely difficult work and eventually, I gave up on the project due to lack of time and funds. I tried, and I failed miserably, and now I have a deeper appreciation of the problems involved in crafting such an invention, and a sensitivity and compassion about those problems. So yeah, you could say I'm a "walk a mile in his shoes" kind of guy.

In any case, you're complaining about it here, where Hines might not even know about it or recognize it as valid information. Why not write him a letter directly? You want to be helpful, go to the source of the problem instead of whinging on a bulletin board. Put your money where your mouth is.

I'm fine to walk away from this at any time.

I think you mean run away.

[gynoneko]

I think this has gone too far. If this keeps up, I'm going to ask Robotman to close this or something... we don't need fight/bickering/whateveryoucallit on these forums.

All I will add is these aren't fembots until they can not only have sex, but also walk, talk, stand, look, etc. The day they can walk around on their own and do something you commanded is the day we have fembots.

[The Egg]

I think this has gone too far. If this keeps up, I'm going to ask Robotman to close this or something... we don't need fight/bickering/whateveryoucallit on these forums.

El Oh El.

So, I get a thread closed for "fighting" with Dale, but Dale (and pretty much everyone else, excepting Kishin who is always fairly diplomatic) can be as insulting and dismissive as he wants about the subject in general. As long as Our Own Sacred And Vaunted Beliefs are not challenged, post whatever you like!

Kind of an unbelievably hypocritical position to take in a thread where I'm being accused of stifling criticism.

This pretty much sums up why I haven't been around for a few years. I've seen grapes less thin-skinned than this.

[gynoneko]

I think this has gone too far. If this keeps up, I'm going to ask Robotman to close this or something... we don't need fight/bickering/whateveryoucallit on these forums.

El Oh El.

So, I get a thread closed for "fighting" with Dale, but Dale (and pretty much everyone else, excepting Kishin who is always fairly diplomatic) can be as insulting and dismissive as he wants about the subject in general. As long as Our Own Sacred And Vaunted Beliefs are not challenged, post whatever you like!

Kind of an unbelievably hypocritical position to take in a thread where I'm being accused of stifling criticism.

This pretty much sums up why I haven't been around for a few years. I've seen grapes less thin-skinned than this.

When did I accuse YOU of anything?! I am merely saying it is getting a little heated on both sides... and starting to get insulting... and now you've pretty much insulted me too. Critisism is fine... but personal attacks are not. I was merely saying it was getting awfully close to this, and now it seems you are still going and focusing on me with it too.
I'm not trying to push you out of the forums, or away from the group. I am trying to calm things down, it just seemed to get a little heated is all. But if that's how you want to play it... fine. Be my guest. Insult anyone that says anything you perceive as against you whether or not it actually is. Go back and read my posts. I never accused you of anything, never insulted anyone, never took a sarcastic tone, and I don't appreciate being treated like this. So sorry I offered my opinion in there when clearly it didn't match with yours. So be my guest and insult me for caring about the forums. I won't retaliate. I won't start a flame war. But if you have something to say to me personally, send me an IM. And grow up.

[xodar]

» Ability to Rent Her in Select Markets Initially and Additional Markets in the Future

Am I the only one that finds the idea of reusing a sex toy by other people as disgusting?

Well, I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has hired actual live human females who've been hired not long before for the same purpose. You got to go to middle class or higher places to be sure they are clean and careful.
Fembots can probably be taught to clean fembots, but humans will need to inspect them using black lights and other means. (Body fluids show up under blacklights. I saw a TV show where the journalists demonstrated that in seemingly clean motel rooms; stuff was smeared on the walls and in the rugs...)