Google Condom Announced

This draft press release was secretly forwarded to me from an old college friend, well placed at the Googleplex in a high-profile R&D unit. He insists on anonymity for obvious reasons, but he has proved a reliable source in the past. (I heard about Google Glass from him in 2012 about six months before beta versions actually appeared in public.) Internal metadata attached to the document suggest that product introduction is imminent.

LATEST GOOGLE WEARABLE PROMOTES BOTH ZPG AND ENHANCED PLEASURE

The new Google Condom represents the most advanced technological wonder in the contraception market. Merely the latest product in the wide-ranging Google portfolio of remarkable inventions, this remarkable innovation further advances Google's global mission: to solve the world's problems - from the everyday to the epic, from the mundane to the monumental.

This enhanced condom includes all the standard advantages of regular condoms (a thin impermeable polymer membrane that permits confident safe sex and inhibits both pregnancies and STI disease transmission) but also deftly incorporates a wide range of technological devices designed to heighten, record and transmit many of the most significant aspects of sexual intimacy.

Head Scientist Stephen Highland of the R&D unit Google X notes that many of the individual innovations present in the Google Condom were developed in support of other Google products, such as Google Glass. "We learned a lot about miniaturization from Glass," maintains Highland, "but for the Google Condom, it was a matter of synergy, bringing together a suite of appropriate technological solutions into one unified package, something that Google has always done well."

Recent breakthroughs in nano-technology, including the same engineering micro-precision that allows miniature cameras to be attached to small insects to study invertebrate flight, come to fruition in the Google Condom. The base model Google Condom (GC) includes a micro-camera at the tip (or "head") of the condom that weighs just over three grams and incorporates a wide-angle lens and a three megapixel camera sensor with ultra-high ISO that allows spectacular imaging even in low light conditions. Photos are automatically captured at fifteen-second intervals for as long as ten minutes.

Google Media Specialist Ginger Ingram says the "result is a bit like a 'cervix selfie.' "

Video output, still under development, will be available in the Hyper GC+ model, due for release in October. For all GC models, Wifi (Wi-Fi 802.11b/g) transmission hardware is mounted in a small fluid-proof polymer pouch at the base of the condom, unobtrusive and out of the way. Data is transmitted to a suitable receiving device (laptop, notebook) via Bluetooth protocols for up to a thirty-foot radius. Data files are JPG, MP3 and MP4 formats and are fully compatible with all Android devices.

One step up from the base model, the GC+ condom includes a series of embedded sensors that provide audio outputs, timer alerts and temperature monitoring to the receiving device.

Usability testing indicates that the opportunity to capture and later "relive" the multi-sensory condom experience is "highly exciting" and "revolutionary" in its impact for practitioners.

Google focus groups have been uniformly glowing. "The quality of the visual imagery is stunning," reported one early tester, "from entry to final event." During the climactic moments the Dolby enhanced audio files have been described as reminiscent of "up close at Niagara Falls" or the "take-off of a Boeing 747." For a full-feature experience, the audio outputs can be synced seamlessly to standard camcorder ouput files if the condum event is captured by a third party or a remotely mounted camcorder on a tripod.

Timing alerts have proven attractive to the Fitness Tracker market. The ability to set a auditory reminder signal (which for a GC+ means a soft, low-timbre tone, audible to both participants) assists efforts to prolong copulatory duration. Infinitely adjustable to intervals from one to twenty minutes, the preset timer indicates time taken

in res copulatio.

By establishing a "benchmark," users then can take measures to extend the union. One prototype tester reported that with just a little practice, he was able to double his original session average to over seven minutes.

Heat sensors produce a low humming tone when copulatory temperatures rise more than five degrees Celsius above standard body temperature. "Frictional heat is one measure of intensity," added Highland. "Testers report greater enjoyment when this range of temperature elevation is maintained for an extended period. Helping users find their 'sweet spot' is a Google priority."

Final pricing has not yet been finalized, but Google Marketing insists that the base model GC will cost "less than a good dinner out."

The document has a release date tentatively slated for April of this year.

My source reports that Silicon Valley being the hyper competitive snakepit that it is, word of the pioneering aspects of GC has leaked out and other companies are already scrambling to produce their own competing versions. Apple's product, predictably named the "iCum," will include a variety of bright Art Deco colors as distinguishing features.

I suppose it is only a matter of time before folks will be asking for a "smart condom" at their local liquor store or other usual purchase location. My own feeling, perhaps a bit retrograde and coming from a perhaps jaded engineer, is that a wearable is only as "smart" as what it covers. I am not sure where a penis lies on the intelligence spectrum, but that is a separate issue.