SLR at CES 2024

There was a ton of tech to investigate at CES this year in Las Vegas. Some of it was truly interesting, and some of it… not so much. 

For those who don’t know, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a massive convention for industry professionals in the tech sector to showcase their latest projects, make connections, and gawk at all the fancy new robots and flying cars coming down the pipeline. For SLR, it’s an opportunity to scope out what new VR related technologies we might be able to incorporate into the SLR experience for our users, whether it’s a new type of headset, an advancement in camera technology, or some other unknown factor that comes out of left field. 

While a lot of the things we saw there were interesting, only a handful of things really stood out within the focus of how it affects VR Porn and where it’s headed in the future. Here’s what we found. 

Sony X Unreal Engine 5: The Crossover of the Century

One of the most intriguing demonstrations we saw at CES was presented by Sony. They’ve partnered with Epic Games to integrate Unreal Engine 5 with their camera and display rigs. They project a computer-rendered background onto a giant screen behind the subject, and the camera records it like it would a green screen. Unlike a green screen, however, the display is rendered in real-time and reacts to the camera’s position in real space. 

What’s great about this technology is that it gives filmmakers the ability to create scenes that would otherwise be incredibly expensive, or dangerous, or impossible to shoot for any other reason, without resorting to cheesy, low-quality alternatives. If we want to shoot a high-quality porn scene in a challenging setting, now we can– with much fewer obstacles making it impossible or unfeasible. For example, what if we want a realistic looking scene inside the International Space Station? Difficult to do, for obvious reasons. 

But with this technology, the goal of making it look believable goes from being a far-off dream to an actual possibility. Or what if we want to shoot a hot sex scene taking place in a moving car, with the top down, passing cars on the Pacific Coast Highway? Doing that in real life is obviously problematic for a lot of reasons; safety, ethics, cost, etc. But shooting it in a closed studio could mitigate all of those problems and end up being trivial in terms of technical challenge, too. In short, this application significantly broadens the potential for creative filmmaking. That’s great for non-adult content, but it’s great for porn too.

VR porn has a unique advantage here, also. Unreal Engine, typically used to make video games, renders in 3D. VR Games are often created using UE5, making it an already-proven tool for creating and consuming stereoscopic media. In fact, early this year a mod was released that handily converts ANY game made in Unreal to a VR game. It took the VR gaming world by storm and proves the point that Unreal Engine and VR are a natural fit. This is important, because VR porn is– as you know– shot stereoscopically. Shooting VR porn using this technology will be no more of a challenge than shooting flat scenes– the 3D part of it is already built into the DNA of the system. All a filmmaker needs is a stereoscopic camera, just like they would use for any other VR shoot. No additional parts required. 

Spatial Spectacles: Sex-Ray Spex

With Apple’s Vision Pro now available for pre-order and shipping in just a few weeks, it’s no secret that the “spatial computing” phenomenon is gathering momentum. These startups had their own table at the CES cafeteria this year, so to speak. Frankly, after checking them all out they all tend to blur together. It’s a burgeoning space, so naturally there’s a lot of encouraging development and some great competition driving it all forward, which is a great thing to see, but it can be a bit overwhelming to take in analytically over the period of a few hectic hours. A few things in the spatial computing… um… space… really stood out to us. 

XReal seems to be leading the charge in the development of unobtrusive wearable tech that offers a quality Mixed Reality experience. Their Air 2 series of headsets are the size and shape of a pair of normal reading glasses, but give the user a beautiful virtual overlay that places useful objects in the real-world. Users are able to dial in the opacity of the display to suit each use case. If you need a few virtual monitors to get some work done, for example, you can see them and still see your hands on your keyboard and your coffee mug on your desk without having to remove the headset. You can remain fully engaged in the real world. Or you can darken the displays like a curtain to free you from distractions and allow you to focus on whatever you want. 

Another company called Nimo has created a system which pairs the headset with a pocket sized computer. The idea is: users can pick up and go with their entire workspace, multiple monitors, notes, recordings, presentations, etc., and take it anywhere without having to lug around a full laptop and without having to compromise on available peripherals. The entire computer is the size of a mouse, and the only other necessary piece of equipment is a headset display. This could enable people to take their whole office with them on an airplane, for example. Or perhaps share a presentation with a room full of colleagues without actually needing a projector– everyone would simply see the virtual screen on their own display in shared virtual space. 

Despite the name “Xreal” sounding like an adult-content website, most of this spatial computing tech is clearly aimed at the workhorse, business-minded consumer, rather than the fun, energy-drink chugging party guy who likes to play games and throw ropes in VR. Though these devices are geared more toward productivity than fun, it’s still possible to use them to play games or watch VR content. 

The obvious SLR-related opportunity with such devices is passthrough VR porn and haptic sex toys. These glasses seem like a natural fit for high-quality passthrough videos being even more realistic. Instead of the headset rendering the real world via camera inputs, it works in reverse, rendering the virtual world onto an overlaying display of the actual real world in front of your actual eyes. It will be interesting to see the difference between these two approaches and which one becomes the most preferred by VR porn fans like us. And with the ability to quickly modulate opacity, you’ll be able to see the physical space around you. Futzing around with your Handy will presumably be much simpler before, during and after your viewing session. 

These Are A Few of Our Favorite Rings

Speaking of futzing: there were some compelling developments in wearable tech at CES this year. We saw several startups that have been working on smart rings, like RingConn and Oura, just to name a couple. Most of these are geared toward health and fitness, offering a suite of biometric monitoring options and physical condition data. It’s all pretty neat by its own merit, but we noticed several companies emphasizing the smart ring as an input device for other smart devices around the house. You could squeeze your ring to switch a light on or off, for example. Or you could use programmed gestures to activate objects like your thermostat.

Already, we can see the potential for this in VR porn. While many companies are moving toward controller-free hand tracking, there are still a few hiccups in that approach when it comes to VR porn specifically. Sometimes– as you may already know– your hands can be a little preoccupied. You might start sending inputs that weren’t intended. Maybe a lot of them... Maybe at a pretty rapid pace… Maybe you see where I’m going with this. 

A smart ring paired to a headset could be an elegant solution to the controller/hand dilemma for VR porn fans. It’s an affordable, accessible and intuitive input device that doesn’t require a full free hand, is waterproof, and can be programmed to respond to preferred gestures on an individual level. You could potentially scrub video, change volume, adjust video settings, skip scenes, play or pause your sex toy script, and everything else by simply activating your ring and using a natural gesture. 

Sexual Fantasy Haptics

Haptics were huge at CES. There were a ton of companies showing off what they’ve been working on and a lot of it was pretty impressive. That said, nothing stood out to us as a huge leap forward. It seems as though haptics have established a reputation for advancing at a slow and steady pace resulting in incremental improvements from year to year. 

One company, Microtube Technologies, stood out as having some potential. They presented a haptic glove they call HEXR which uses sophisticated actuators and sensors to emulate sensations like touch and resistance. While wearing the glove in their demonstration, you could feel a sensory stimulation that replicated the feeling of falling raindrops. It was kind of cool, but not as impressive as the physical resistance the glove would impart while gripping an object. Typically, interacting with virtual objects is acutely immersion-breaking in VR, because your hand can’t actually feel any object in the real world. This glove stiffens its joints to emulate the space between your fingers being occupied by any object rendered by the software. It’s a remarkable step forward in closing the gap between real and virtual. 

The possibilities for such technology make a lot of sense for VR porn. With kit like this, users could potentially reach out and feel the model’s body as she moves in front of them. Instead of playing along and pretending, the software would meet you halfway and add realistic-feeling resistance to your interactions, making the virtual space feel that much more real and physical. While the concept is still fairly new, the possibilities for improving the VR porn experience are worthy of examination. 

Transparent OLED: Through the Shtupping Glass

Samsung revealed their transparent MicroOLED TVs this year, which was one of the headlining reveals of the whole event. LG had a display featuring transparent OLED, too. It has our interest because of the potential for adding new diverse ways of experiencing our content in the future. Though the practical application of this technology is not likely to be common in an average household anytime soon, the day may come when visible TVs are only found in museums… It's really not difficult to imagine such a future.

In that case, our passthrough VR porn will already have a hand on the wheel. The entire library of passthrough content at SexLikeReal will be viewable on a transparent screen, making the whole experience similar to a hologram in real space– no headset required. The pieces are all there, so it’s really only a matter of time before this type of viewing experience becomes commonplace, and yet another great option for getting more value out of your SLR Premium subscription. 

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Which of these up-and-coming technologies are you most excited about? Are there any that you think will be a huge hit or a massive disappointment? We had a lot of fun and saw a lot of great ideas coming to fruition at CES this year, but there was a lot going on and we certainly didn’t see it all. Did you get a chance to go? If so, was there anything you saw that belongs on this list?

Let us know in the comments below, or jump onto our forum and share your thoughts!