Last year, Naughty America became the first adult film company to make an appearance at CES in 16 years. We sat down with the company"s CIO Ian Paul and he talked about some augmented reality ambitions. For the firm"s second appearance at the show, Naughty America had an early beta of its first AR app.
Before you jump to the obvious conclusions, the app is completely safe for work. In fact, all it really does is add a scantily-clad woman on top of the real world, using ARKit. You can walk up to her, walk around her, and even take a selfie with her, but that"s about it.
The reason for this is that the app needs to meet the standards set by various app stores. I did ask about side-loading, and while this is out of the question for iOS, it remains a possibility for Android. The app seems to be very much in the prototype stages at the moment, and Naughty America is still deciding what it can actually do with it.
What"s more interesting than the actual app is that Naughty America is beginning to experiment with augmented reality. Last year, I asked about the possibility of an app for HoloLens (an NSFW app), and was told that it"s not possible with today"s technology, and that it"s not cost-effective. This year, I was told that the reason that HoloLens is still off the table is simply due to the device"s limited field of view, which wouldn"t offer a realistic experience.
Adult film companies are often on the cutting edge of new technologies, and that"s especially true of today"s technological climate. We now live in the age of PornHub, where anyone can stream adult videos for free. This leaves paid services like Naughty America in a place that leaves it constantly having to provide new value propositions. It"s already ventured into 4K UHD and later virtual reality, so it would seem that the next frontier is augmented reality.