Shooting Porn With Glass Is... Different
July 23, 2013 10:22 AM   Subscribe

POV is a trick used in both Hollywood filmmaking and adult filmmaking to let the viewer feel like the camera’s eyes are theirs. The problem is, no matter how skilled the Hollywood cinematographer or the porn videographer, traditional POV shots don’t have a true lifelikeness because the camera is still too big to get intimate, close-up line-of-sight shots as we would see with our naked eyes. Glass changes that. And while the quality of Glass-shot video isn’t good enough for Hollywood blockbusters, it’s more than good enough for porn. [SLFC] [NSFW]
posted by chavenet (47 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite


 
Next stop SQUID.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:27 AM on July 23, 2013 [7 favorites]


Combine it with an Occulus Rift and witness the beginning of the end.
posted by codacorolla at 10:29 AM on July 23, 2013 [11 favorites]


Ah, thought you were linking to this...
“The first thing everyone thought [when Glass came out] was, OK, it’s obviously going to be used for porn,” Adams said.

After carefully reviewing Google’s terms of service during development, they proceeded to roll out their app, releasing it on May 27 and officially announcing it June 3. But much to their dismay, they learned that Google had changed its TOS in the days before the announcement to prohibit “Glassware content that contains nudity, graphic sex acts, or sexually explicit material.” Though MiKandi pulled their app immediately upon realizing the TOS had been changed, they discovered Google had set API limits to zero, effectively forcing them to start over.
posted by jessamyn at 10:33 AM on July 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Pornographers always have been the er... guinea pigs for new tech.
posted by ob at 10:34 AM on July 23, 2013


Combine it with an Occulus Rift and witness the beginning of the end.

But does it also suck your dick? (Onion, NSFW)
posted by furtive at 10:36 AM on July 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Most technological developments are driven by the seven Gs: Gambling, Games, Geodata, Genealogy, Girls (pornography), Good health (medicine) or Guns (military and defence).

It was wearying that within a few days of the Nintendo 3DS being launched, people were making porn pictures and 3D video clips, uploading and publicising. Wearying more because the discussions around the console focused more on that, and less on the interesting (and still under-used) features such as the Augmented Reality. And it made for the inevitable incidents and subsequent reporting.
posted by Wordshore at 10:42 AM on July 23, 2013 [7 favorites]


MiKandi is the world’s largest adult app store. Launched for the Android platform in 2009, MiKandi now offers over 8000 adult apps, generates over a million downloads a month, and has over four million users--with another 3000 users being added each day.

Still reading the article, those numbers caught my eye. 8000 adult apps, what the hell, how..what?

I'm reminded of the 1983 film, Brainstorm. In it, a device was created that allowed a person's (A) visional and auditory senses to be recorded and played back for others (B), as if (B) had experienced (A)'s action.

One of the scientists wound up having a heart attack due to viewing a porn loop in his basement. He was just a naked, quivering lump staring off into space.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:47 AM on July 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Soon you'll be able to zoom in and see actual bacteria, riding drops of sweat on tiny surfboards.
posted by delfin at 10:50 AM on July 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Soon you'll be able to zoom in and see actual bacteria, riding drops of sweat on tiny surfboards.

Yes but then the tiny bacteria will actually be doing porn stuff, like 'DP' and 'ATM' and 'facials' as well. Like capitalism, pornification cannot stop at any point, ever.
posted by colie at 10:52 AM on July 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


8000 adult apps, what the hell, how..what?

I'd bet that the vast majority are single-website "apps" that just use existing content.
posted by Etrigan at 10:53 AM on July 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yes but then the tiny bacteria will actually be doing porn stuff, like 'DP' and 'ATM' and 'facials' as well.

And they'll be wearing microscopic Google Glass while doing so.

THE CIRRRRRRRRRRRRCLE OF LIIIIIIIIIIIFE
posted by delfin at 10:56 AM on July 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


"Put 'Em On The Glass" -- Watch him violate this nerd girl's warranty and then jailbreak the hell out of everything she holds dear.
posted by pracowity at 11:04 AM on July 23, 2013 [6 favorites]


I await the inevitable software/business method patent lawsuit.
posted by juiceCake at 11:04 AM on July 23, 2013


The perspective of the woman's hands in that small insert picture looks off - kind of like the weapons in early FPS. I don't think that kind of porn would work for me, I'd just make twitchy controller motions and keep looking around for powerups.
posted by Dr Dracator at 11:27 AM on July 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


That trailer is hilarious.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:27 AM on July 23, 2013


Like capitalism, pornification cannot stop at any point, ever.

It's nothing but porn, all the way down.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:28 AM on July 23, 2013


Course, the worst problem with POV porn is "that ain't my dick"...
posted by MartinWisse at 11:33 AM on July 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


And they'll be wearing microscopic Google Glass while doing so.

every flea hath smaller fleas upon his backs that bite him
and google glass for filming porn and a tiny surfboard to ride on
posted by 7segment at 11:37 AM on July 23, 2013 [21 favorites]


Of course Glass is for porn, but it's not the camera that is going to revolutionize filming it. There's plenty of tiny video cameras you can get close enough to an actor's eye to work. The real excitement is going to be watching porn in this intimate way. At least, I think so, but then again we've had eyephone technology for awhile now and that's hardly had a big impact.
posted by Nelson at 11:50 AM on July 23, 2013


James Deen is one of the performers? Kind of bummed that Stoya isn't the other.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:56 AM on July 23, 2013 [2 favorites]




Next stop...Brainstorm.
From the wikipedia entry...
One team member, Gordo (Jordan Christopher), has sexual intercourse while wearing the recorder, and shares the tape with other colleagues, including Hal Abramson (Joe Dorsey). Hal splices one section of the tape into a continuous orgasm, which results in sensory overload that nearly kills him - leading to his forced retirement. Tensions increase as the possibilities for abuse become clear.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:03 PM on July 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


they discovered Google had set API limits to zero, effectively forcing them to start over.

Could somebody explain to me what this means? What's an API limit?
posted by gern at 1:02 PM on July 23, 2013


> mainstream business

There's the rub.

Remember: "My name is Arthur C. Clarke, and I wish ..."

The business mainstream hasn't quite figured out how to make that profitable, even yet.
Once the figures add up to profitability, bet on it.
posted by hank at 1:37 PM on July 23, 2013


Could somebody explain to me what this means? What's an API limit?

Google uses quotas to enforce access usage limits (numbers of web requests for authorization tokens, essentially) on developers writing software that accesses Google's APIs or software components, such as the Mirror API used for the Glass hardware device.

Software running on Glass places authorized requests to be able to run, but the software can only request so many authorized tokens. In the case of these developers, their software can make no requests, because Google reduced their API limit or quota to zero. So users can't run their software.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:34 PM on July 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


A generation of innovators want to change the way we have sex and consume porn, but Google, Apple, and Amazon won't let them.

Sony and JVC didn't exactly "let" anyone make porn on videotapes either but that didn't seem to stop anybody. I don't see why letting small companies handle pron is so bad. It's not like Google, Apple or Amazon need to get any bigger.
posted by GuyZero at 2:57 PM on July 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


... but Google, Apple, and Amazon won't let them.

To be accurate, Google, Apple, and Amazon's lawyers won't let them. Curating access to something like porn would be an ugly legal minefield, I think.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:06 PM on July 23, 2013


GuyZero: "Sony and JVC didn't exactly "let" anyone make porn on videotapes either but that didn't seem to stop anybody."
Sony and JVC didn't control the major content distribution channels for their devices.
posted by brokkr at 3:38 PM on July 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


brokkr: "
GuyZero: "Sony and JVC didn't exactly "let" anyone make porn on videotapes either but that didn't seem to stop anybody."
Sony and JVC didn't control the major content distribution channels for their devices
"

You mean, shoeboxes under your dad or older brother's bed?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:11 PM on July 23, 2013


Was there a delay in porn distribution on DVD? IIRC you had to have access to a signing key to produce a DVD that would play in consumer players. Were porn companies allowed to make official DVDs from day one or was there an effort to block them? My memory is very fuzzy, but there was a few years between crappy videotapes and the Internet where DVD porn would have been a lush market.

Google's control over what software is allowed to run on Glass is not surprising, but disappointing. We truly are at the end of the era of general purpose computation as the norm.
posted by Nelson at 4:13 PM on July 23, 2013


Pornography makers favored the HD DVD format due to Sony's initial refusal to grant keys to print Blu-ray media, but Sony reversed their policy. Perhaps they didn't want a repeat of their Betamax failure. Whatever else tipped the scales in their favor, HD DVD became obsolete in mid-2008.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:24 PM on July 23, 2013


Google's control over what software is allowed to run on Glass is not surprising, but disappointing.

Glass has not been released to the general public yet, so it's not exactly in the same category as, say, an Android phone where you can install anything you want.
posted by GuyZero at 5:08 PM on July 23, 2013


Except that Google, like others, is trying to force everything into the cloud. So you may be able to install whatever you want on your production Glass, but what you install won't be able to use the full power of the system, because all the interesting functionality of the platform will be at Google (and the local hardware nerfed to the point where you can't replicate that functionality).

What I don't understand is why anybody would buy a product whose vendor tried to control what software they ran, or required them to put all their data on somebody else's computer. I just can't get inside that mentality.
posted by Hizonner at 5:15 PM on July 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


What I don't understand is why anybody would buy a product whose vendor tried to control what software they ran

Because the product already does what they want it to do. What you describe has been true for every video game console, ever. It's not defensible as being the best system, but empirically people simply don't care that much about it.
posted by GuyZero at 5:27 PM on July 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


The product does what they want it to today. The vendor can change what it does tomorrow, and that can include breaking things it does today.

Cloud providers take away functions all the time, both for technical reasons (what you're doing is too unpopular and/or too hard to support in some new architecture), and for business reasons (what you're doing is too hard to monetize, or the app you bought the device for competes with their own new offering, or maybe that porn app you like just has poor optics). They also do fun things like hosing your privacy at random.

Google has broken Google Apps in the past, after encouraging people to make their businesses depend on it. They've turned off entire products that people were depending on. And they're still way better than, say, Apple or Facebook.

I guess I can see buying something like that if you genuinely don't care whether it works tomorrow, but to spend any significant money, or depend on it for anything you really care about? Absolutely incomprehensible.
posted by Hizonner at 5:57 PM on July 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


I don't remember seeing a hardcore vignette in that slick, feel good Google video where I learned how my life would finally be interesting once I got a Glass.

I'm glad someone found a use for the thing though.
posted by nowhere man at 8:17 PM on July 23, 2013


I predict some sort of Glass + Oculus Rift + Fleshlight + Teledildonics + Sybian combo product.
posted by thewalrus at 8:34 PM on July 23, 2013


+ Teledildonics

I thought dildos were extinct.
posted by homunculus at 8:36 PM on July 23, 2013


Amy Schumer did this on her show.
posted by gjc at 8:47 PM on July 23, 2013


I guess I can see buying something like that if you genuinely don't care whether it works tomorrow, but to spend any significant money, or depend on it for anything you really care about? Absolutely incomprehensible.

But widely practiced none the less.
posted by GuyZero at 10:35 PM on July 23, 2013


The problem is, no matter how skilled the Hollywood cinematographer or the porn videographer, traditional POV shots don’t have a true lifelikeness because the camera is still too big to get intimate, close-up line-of-sight shots as we would see with our naked eyes. Glass changes that.

Not very well, though. There are much better (cheaper, higher res) alternatives, like these HD video sunglasses. You would look like an idiot having sex in sunglasses, but not as much of an idiot as you would (do!) wearing Google Glass.

This is a bit of a stunt, is what I'm saying.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 12:10 AM on July 24, 2013


Wait.. Google Glass came out?
posted by Autumn at 1:21 AM on July 24, 2013


If bulky cameras were actually a problem, couldn't someone just come up with some kind of system of mirrors to capture the proper perspective? Or do real cinematographers with real budgets already do that for non-porn work?
posted by indubitable at 5:09 AM on July 24, 2013


I thought this was referring to Ira Glass...
posted by miyabo at 8:51 AM on July 24, 2013


You want to do what with Ron Glass?

*insert image of Ron glass as Shepard Book with his hair out and looking surprised.*

But in all honesty it seems like Google Glass is not really a media creation tool so much a media consumption tool. I support HTWRT's assertion that this is a stunt for publicity.
posted by The Violet Cypher at 1:25 PM on July 24, 2013


If I had Google Glass I would have the thing constantly saving the last 5 minutes or so in an overwritten buffer. Then if I witnessed something cool/scary/important/newsworthy I wouldn't have had to react instantly and start recording, I would be able to tell it to save what was already recorded and have it put up in the cloud or whatever in case the glasses got confiscated.
posted by Justinian at 2:48 PM on July 24, 2013


Aaaaand I see there is a link to an app that does something similar for your phone on the front page right now. This is why I am not a rich inventor, always a day late and a million dollars short.
posted by Justinian at 3:46 PM on July 24, 2013


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