Thursday, July 28, 2016

Little Bird sex toy Means You’ll never look at your Kindle In the same way again – Wired.co.uk




Friday 22 July 2016



Credit B.Sensory

Besides erotic and racy novels, reading and sex rarely go hand-in-hand. Little Bird wants to change that.



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Christel Le Coq – and yes, that’s her real name – is the CEO and Founder of E.Sensory. She Could perhaps be best described as an up-and-coming “sexpreneur” and her small start-up based in the French town of Brest – again, no joke – looks set to take our enjoyment of reading to a whole new level.

The Firm has just officially Launched the Little Bird, a clever sex toy Which links with your tablet or smartphone via Bluetooth. As you read, this teledildonics gadget translates the story, gestures and on-screen touches into stimulation, but in a much more nuanced and customizable way than your average vibrator.

  • Lovely is The Fitbit for your sex life


    Lovely is The Fitbit for your sex life


“I love literature, and erotic literature, but I also love technology,” Le Coq told Wired. “That’s why I think it’s a good idea to combine the power of words and the potential of connected devices. Inherently, erotic literature is what is given more sensations, and I like the idea of ​​giving women a new way of reading and of having fun. It speaks to our first sensorial organs: the brain. With this innovative love-toy, words’ve become caresses, literature turns into a true sensorial experience and The Body Becomes a Part of the Story! “

The Little Bird hardware is a friendly-looking gadget That comes in colors Such as “Mojito Green” and would not look Entirely out of place in an Apple shop. It links to the companion app via Bluetooth, and once you download it and make yourself comfortable, all that’s left to do is select an erotic text from the vibration library and start reading. Audiobook versions are also available.



Credit B.Sensory

ADVERTISEMENT
  • Gallery: Lovely ice the Fitbit for your sex life


    Gallery: Lovely ice the Fitbit for your sex life


As the story unfolds, the device vibrates Accordingly, so THAT the steamier moments the rhythm ramps up but the user can overpriced replay a sequence or adjust the vibration of according to Their mood.

But what if you want to use it with your own favorite eBook?

“That’s a bit different,” explained Le Coq. “Each woman reads at her own speed, and at the moment we can not use eye tracking or page turning features to detect this, since They Vary of according to screen size. So instead, we put in some interactive elements Such as text blurring, So THAT You have to touch the screen to reveal the paragraph, and That then triggers vibration That Go With that part of the story. “

Or if you’re not in the mood for reading, you can just play around with the remote and enjoy the 10 different settings. The next version of the app will also have features That allow for a vibrating message service, and the probability to give control of the device to a partner over bothering short and long distances.



ADVERTISEMENT
  • These six-tech toys will blow your mind


    These six tech toys will blow your mind


But how exactly does one end up designing sex toys for a living? Le coq us told me it all came from an early love of books: “When I was six, something fantastic happened to me: I learned to read. At that moment my life changed, Because I Understood I would never be bored again. To me, reading Meant knowledge, independence, and freedom. “



Credit B .Sensory

“I remember reading this book called The Parfum by Patrick Suskind, and When he described the violet fragrance, I actually smelt it. That’s when i realised That words, had this power to not only make you cry, dream and laugh, but overpriced till Physically awaken your senses. “

It was only natural, then, for her to find herself working in publishing, where she started experimenting with new technologies Such as QR codes, image recognition and even augmented reality to Enhance the experience for readers. However, the French are nothing if not romantic, so it was not an easy sell to convince them to read Those in digital formats. The feel, touch and even the smell of the paper as part of the enjoyment, so how can a sterile tablet or smartphone ever hope to compete with That tactile, sensual experience?

  • Gallery: These six tech toys will blow your mind


    Gallery: These six tech toys will blow your mind


“I Began to ask myself how I could Enhance the digital experience, and give this content a real physical dimension? How Could we transform emotions into sensations? “Le Coq Continued.

To developement These ideas she started her own company and soon landed on the concept of using erotic literature to showcase the potential of this new medium. Getting funding for the idea was far from easy, however, especially for a female entrepreneur.

“It’s the reason why I became a feminist entrepreneur,” she laughs. “In France I had to fight my way through, but in the US they know That the erotic market is huge, so we can just speak about the business.”

Female masturbation is definitely still taboo no matter how many episodes of Sex and the City we watch, she feels. “But, Particularly in France, still want to believe That Women Are Unable to reach pleasure and sexual satisfaction without them. They can not admit That it’s exactly like male masturbation, Which is – and this goes for bothering men and women – a very different pleasure to having sex with someone. “

  • The Pulse ‘guybrator’: A Darth Vader-style vibro-helmet for penises


    The Pulse ‘guybrator’: A Darth Vader-style vibro-helmet for penises


She stresses That the potential for Technology to Enhance reading goes far beyond just adult content, however. While the B.Sensory side of her business will continue to developping the erotic literature and teledildonics products, the E.Sensory parent company is alreadyloggedin exploring partnerships with Amazon’s Audible to developmental audio-sensorial reading. She Also has ideas around Integrating music, video, and VR technology to create truly immersive reading experiences.

The team finns även Working with Spanish Research Centre Eurecat to explore how smart textiles Could push this interactivity even Further by collecting datasuch as heart rate and body temperature from users and Reacting Accordingly.

“We’re Defining a palette of digital sensations – heat, pressure, vibration – We could convey through Those garments,” said Le Coq. “Just imagine if, with the Sami connected piece of clothing You could feel the rhythm of your favorite song on Spotify, James Bond’s heartbeat as you watch a movie, or the warmth of a fire as you read a passage of a book on your Kindle . “

The possibilities are literally titillating.

ADVERTISEMENT

All the hardwork does seem to be paying off, as B .Sensory were awarded the CES 2016 Innovation Award and by January alreadyloggedin had pre-orders from more than twenty different countries. Le Coq is excited about building a global community of readers in many different languages ​​(Versions and content in Portuguese, German, Spanish and Italian are planned to launch in coming months) as the first batch of Little Birds start flying out to Their eager customers this week.

You can place your own order on the site now for $ 129 but Those batches will not ship Until the end of August.

Users will not have long to wait for an English version of the app, though, Which is set to launch next month, with a library of content to follow in November. In the meantime, this Could be a really good excuse to brush up on rusty French Those skills. Sure plastering a new spin on “où est la Bibliothèque?”

An EARLIER ad for The Little Bird quipped that: “One Swallow Does not Make a Summer, but a Little Bird Doe.” Innuendos aside though , this Could start a feminist revolution in publishing and tech, and make our holiday reading a whole lot more interesting in the process.

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Sunday, July 24, 2016

Little Bird sex toy Means You’ll never look at your Kindle In the same way again – Wired.co.uk




Friday 22 July 2016



Credit B.Sensory

Besides erotic and racy novels, reading and sex rarely go hand-in-hand. Little Bird wants to change that.



ADVERTISEMENT

Christel Le Coq – and yes, that’s her real name – is the CEO and Founder of E.Sensory. She Could perhaps be best described as an up-and-coming “sexpreneur” and her small start-up based in the French town of Brest – again, no joke – looks set to take our enjoyment of reading to a whole new level.

The Firm has just officially Launched the Little Bird, a clever sex toy Which links with your tablet or smartphone via Bluetooth. As you read, this teledildonics gadget translates the story, gestures and on-screen touches into stimulation, but in a much more nuanced and customizable way than your average vibrator.

  • Lovely is The Fitbit for your sex life


    Lovely is The Fitbit for your sex life


“I love literature, and erotic literature, but I also love technology,” Le Coq told Wired. “That’s why I think it’s a good idea to combine the power of words and the potential of connected devices. Inherently, erotic literature is what is given more sensations, and I like the idea of ​​giving women a new way of reading and of having fun. It speaks to our first sensorial organs: the brain. With this innovative love-toy, words’ve become caresses, literature turns into a true sensorial experience and The Body Becomes a Part of the Story! “

The Little Bird hardware is a friendly-looking gadget That comes in colors Such as “Mojito Green” and would not look Entirely out of place in an Apple shop. It links to the companion app via Bluetooth, and once you download it and make yourself comfortable, all that’s left to do is select an erotic text from the vibration library and start reading. Audiobook versions are also available.



Credit B.Sensory

ADVERTISEMENT
  • Gallery: Lovely ice the Fitbit for your sex life


    Gallery: Lovely ice the Fitbit for your sex life


As the story unfolds, the device vibrates Accordingly, so THAT the steamier moments the rhythm ramps up but the user can overpriced replay a sequence or adjust the vibration of according to Their mood.

But what if you want to use it with your own favorite eBook?

“That’s a bit different,” explained Le Coq. “Each woman reads at her own speed, and at the moment we can not use eye tracking or page turning features to detect this, since They Vary of according to screen size. So instead, we put in some interactive elements Such as text blurring, So THAT You have to touch the screen to reveal the paragraph, and That then triggers vibration That Go With that part of the story. “

Or if you’re not in the mood for reading, you can just play around with the remote and enjoy the 10 different settings. The next version of the app will also have features That allow for a vibrating message service, and the probability to give control of the device to a partner over bothering short and long distances.



ADVERTISEMENT
  • These six-tech toys will blow your mind


    These six tech toys will blow your mind


But how exactly does one end up designing sex toys for a living? Le coq us told me it all came from an early love of books: “When I was six, something fantastic happened to me: I learned to read. At that moment my life changed, Because I Understood I would never be bored again. To me, reading Meant knowledge, independence, and freedom. “



Credit B .Sensory

“I remember reading this book called The Parfum by Patrick Suskind, and When he described the violet fragrance, I actually smelt it. That’s when i realised That words, had this power to not only make you cry, dream and laugh, but overpriced till Physically awaken your senses. “

It was only natural, then, for her to find herself working in publishing, where she started experimenting with new technologies Such as QR codes, image recognition and even augmented reality to Enhance the experience for readers. However, the French are nothing if not romantic, so it was not an easy sell to convince them to read Those in digital formats. The feel, touch and even the smell of the paper as part of the enjoyment, so how can a sterile tablet or smartphone ever hope to compete with That tactile, sensual experience?

  • Gallery: These six tech toys will blow your mind


    Gallery: These six tech toys will blow your mind


“I Began to ask myself how I could Enhance the digital experience, and give this content a real physical dimension? How Could we transform emotions into sensations? “Le Coq Continued.

To developement These ideas she started her own company and soon landed on the concept of using erotic literature to showcase the potential of this new medium. Getting funding for the idea was far from easy, however, especially for a female entrepreneur.

“It’s the reason why I became a feminist entrepreneur,” she laughs. “In France I had to fight my way through, but in the US they know That the erotic market is huge, so we can just speak about the business.”

Female masturbation is definitely still taboo no matter how many episodes of Sex and the City we watch, she feels. “But, Particularly in France, still want to believe That Women Are Unable to reach pleasure and sexual satisfaction without them. They can not admit That it’s exactly like male masturbation, Which is – and this goes for bothering men and women – a very different pleasure to having sex with someone. “

  • The Pulse ‘guybrator’: A Darth Vader-style vibro-helmet for penises


    The Pulse ‘guybrator’: A Darth Vader-style vibro-helmet for penises


She stresses That the potential for Technology to Enhance reading goes far beyond just adult content, however. While the B.Sensory side of her business will continue to developping the erotic literature and teledildonics products, the E.Sensory parent company is alreadyloggedin exploring partnerships with Amazon’s Audible to developmental audio-sensorial reading. She Also has ideas around Integrating music, video, and VR technology to create truly immersive reading experiences.

The team finns även Working with Spanish Research Centre Eurecat to explore how smart textiles Could push this interactivity even Further by collecting datasuch as heart rate and body temperature from users and Reacting Accordingly.

“We’re Defining a palette of digital sensations – heat, pressure, vibration – We could convey through Those garments,” said Le Coq. “Just imagine if, with the Sami connected piece of clothing You could feel the rhythm of your favorite song on Spotify, James Bond’s heartbeat as you watch a movie, or the warmth of a fire as you read a passage of a book on your Kindle . “

The possibilities are literally titillating.

ADVERTISEMENT

All the hardwork does seem to be paying off, as B .Sensory were awarded the CES 2016 Innovation Award and by January alreadyloggedin had pre-orders from more than twenty different countries. Le Coq is excited about building a global community of readers in many different languages ​​(Versions and content in Portuguese, German, Spanish and Italian are planned to launch in coming months) as the first batch of Little Birds start flying out to Their eager customers this week.

You can place your own order on the site now for $ 129 but Those batches will not ship Until the end of August.

Users will not have long to wait for an English version of the app, though, Which is set to launch next month, with a library of content to follow in November. In the meantime, this Could be a really good excuse to brush up on rusty French Those skills. Sure plastering a new spin on “où est la Bibliothèque?”

An EARLIER ad for The Little Bird quipped that: “One Swallow Does not Make a Summer, but a Little Bird Doe.” Innuendos aside though , this Could start a feminist revolution in publishing and tech, and make our holiday reading a whole lot more interesting in the process.

LikeTweet

Saturday, July 23, 2016

Which Font Should I Use On My Kindle? – Co.Design (blog)

Baskerville, Bookerly, Caecilia, Georgia, Helvetica, OpenDyslexic, Palatino, The Mysterious “Publisher Font” :: According to my iPhone’s Kindle app, all of These typefaces are available with a button press, and that’s the problem. If you’re anything like me, as soon as you try to switch fonts, everything looks wonky and borderline illegible. And you burn 10 minutes going back and forth, squinting at Serif, and forget things That you were supposed to be reading leisurely in the first place.

I wondered, Which typeface is the right Typeface-easy to read, classy, ​​and tonally Appropriate for most books? Or at least, the best typeface most of the time? And to find out, I asked bookmark and type designers Their opinion on the topic.

The quick answer May sound like a lot of the setup for an Obvious answer:

You should use whichever font you want to read at whichever size yOU PREFER . That’s probably the best font for you. (And if you want my staff recommendation? Go with Georgia or Palatino .)

But in discovering all of That, I learned a lot along the way, including why most e- Books do not have an optimal font, what we lose When a book is translated to digital, why you should not feel bad for reading in Helvetica (a typeface Generally Considered to be slower for reading large blocks of text), why countless hardware and software standards make it hard to choose the right font for all screens, and the one font most experts would choose for all Those screens if forced.

Helvetica and Palatino

The Problems With Type On E-Reader

Mass customization of according to personnel taste. That’s a benefit of reading e-books. The sight-impaired can make letters are large as They need to, without making the book They hold any bigger. And if I feel like reading The Odyssey in Comic Sans, there’s probably some combination of file format and updates to make that dream possible. Fun!

But what about the power of well-thought-out design? If the masses always knew best, most designers would be out of a job.

Anna Thompson is a designer at Penguin Random House. She spends her days making the countless tiny Decisions That Go into any printed bookthat you read. That ranges from the typeface, to the spacing between letters, to the spacing in the margins, to Whether or not a lot of words are breaking between lines with hyphens, to how wide the gutter line is (that’s the center space in books That separate The text on the left and right pages).

“As far as a print ice Concerned, I’ll read a manuscript, pick up the nuances, think about the origination of a font, and an origin of a story, “Thompson says. “There’s a lot of little nuanced Things That Go into picking a font, and sometimes it’s about the cast-off of a book-that’s Basically the number of pages in a book. Books are still printed in signatures of 16 pages, Which Means your book has to fall on a multiple of 16. so there are all These tweaks you do, maybe the font is a little bigger, or you make the gutter margin a little bit Wider Because it’s thicker, so When you unfold the book, you ‘ re not going to get your text creeping too close to the center of the line. “

It’s, like much of the design, a combination of art and ergonomics. Thompson wants the book’s text to feel thematically tied to the source material-so she’ll pick different fonts for books on cooking than she would meditation than she would Shakespeare than she would pop literature-but it is overpriced has to be comfortable to read. “The one thing I would say is, if you do not notice the design, in some ways, I’ve succeeded,” she says. Her test of her own work is thwart to squint at the page, and see if the words blur together into orderly blocks of text.

However, When one of Thompson’s designs is ported to Kindle and iBooks, all the formatting magic is destroyed. “If I set a book in 11-point font, and you wanted to read it on 12 or 10 on a Kindle, that’s going to change the way That the words are friendlyness on the page,” Thompson says. “And it’s not somethingthat anyone is going to pull Their hair out over, but all of That to say ice, the beauty of the Kindle is the reader has so much control, but That does compete with what a printed type designer is doing. “

The problem is only compounded by the fact That the font Thompson chooses for a print book very rarely makes it to an e-book version. The Publisher’s Font you see on the Kindle has to be licensed separately, and embedded in the e-book file thatcould show on countless iterations of screen sizes and screen ratios. Neither of These steps are taken Usually due to cost and conversion Logistics (every e-book seller converts books to Their Own shaped a little bit differently anyway). And then, there’s the simplest of all realities That Prevent publishers from Providing Their own fonts: Many e-book readers do not even default to the Publisher’s Font, so any additional effort or investment put forth by the publisher would be lost to the reader .

However, as Liisa McCloy-Kelley, VP and director of Ebook Product Development & amp; Innovation, Penguin, Random House, Explains, the most fundamental reason thatPrint fonts are not 1: 1 with the e-book fonts comes down to technical limitations. “There are still Fonts That do not look good on screens,” says McCloy-Kelley. “Many lightweight fonts do not hold up with all types of devices or across all backgrounds. Some do not work well as They are resized up or down. Kerning and tracking are still not well supported in HTML / CSS and so the subtle things you can do with ligatures and other typesetting features in print are still missing for many digital reading experiences. “

E-books victim users typeface customization, sure, but That’s customization is Generally within boundaries That technology companies have Decided Can work on screens.

Baskerville Flickr user Peter Clark

What Top Designers Would Pick For Their Kindles

When pressed, even though she does not own a Kindle, Thompson is a beret Kville fan, the most ornate, and if you will, bookish of the Kindle selection. “It has respectable,” she says. And indeed, it’s 258 years old. Robert Slim Bach, the principal type designers at Adobe Systems, AGREES That Baskerville would be his go-to.

“I like Baskerville Because it is very well suited for reading lengthy text in a full-page format. Its classical characteristics and open counters make it very inviting to read and less fatiguing to the eye, “says Slim Bach. “Baskerville is the kind of design That recedes into the background, allo wing the reader to focus on the content of the text rather than the type itself.”

It’s almost convincing. I pull up my iPhone call it my Kindle of choice-and swap my text to Baskerville. And I can not stand it. The letters look emaciated, with so much ornamentation That They feel like they’re trying too hard.

This difference, between its skinniest and widest parts of each letter, are what typeface designers call “Contrast,” and it’s why, especially on screens, even this age-old typeface can be tough to discern. “Since Baskerville is a fairly high contrast font style, there is the Possibility That it might not always hold up on Certain devices,” says Slim Bach. Type designer Tobias Frere-Jones echoes this sentiment. “[Baskerville's] very dramatic back-and-forth of weight can be really compelling if you have the resolution to render it properly,” says Frere-Jones. “You would for print, but you absolutely would not on a Kindle or any other screen really.” Frere-Jones calls its thinnest sections “spindly” and prone to “disintegrate on a page.” Because of That, he prefers a lower contrast (or in this case, thicker) serifed font, Georgia. Its components can Rasterize (or turn into pixels) properly on a screen, but it still has unique glyphs That, to Frere-Jones, give the typeface some personality.

“Apart from the technical criteria … I think there’s something that’s bothering comfortable and credible in its personality that i like about Georgia, “says Frere-Jones. “Some typefaces [with personality] distract from the content. But Georgia does not do that.”

Georgia and Palatino

What I Would Pick For My Kindle

Checking in on my own Kindle app, I’d Realized In ‘d gone with Georgia as my default instinctually. And while Slim Bach prefers Baskerville, he supports Georgia as a solid second pick, given its flexibility across screens of many resolutions.

But Georgia was not the only Baskerville alternative experts liked. At the urging of Thompson, I checked out the Palatino, a midcentury font developed to mimic the types created in the Italian Renaissance. I’d never thought twice about it (to be honest, I always saw it as a poor man’s Baskerville), but in practice, I found it combined the character of Baskerville with the lower contrast readability of Georgia. Bigelow likes Palatino, too. In fact it’s his first choice of Kindle font-though he admits some level of bias, as he and his colleague Kris Holmes studied with its designer Hermann Zapf. Frere-Jones feels it would “be a good choice,” if not his choice. Slim Bach May be the least bullish on Palatino of the group. “While I think it is a brilliant face, for my taste it has a little too much personality for most book text applications,” he says.

So hopefully it’s clear That You should feel free to read an e -book in any typeface with any font size That you like. But if you’re asking for my own semi-biased opinion after Discussing the issue with a number of specialists, you May want to give Georgia or Palatino a try.

Otherwise, You could always buy a real, paper book. If this Kindle research has taught me anything, it’s that an impressive Amount of time and care goes into the presentation of good old printed texts. And it’s a shame That species is lost just because letters are converted from ink to pixels.

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