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Withdrawn CES award for sex toy prompts gender bias allegations | Business| Economy and finance news from a German perspective | DW

10. January 2019
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Withdrawn CES award for sex toy prompts gender bias allegations | Business| Economy and finance news from a German perspective | DW
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It was supposed to be a highlight for the startup Lora DiCarlo — in the form of a booth right on the show floor, a transparent little sculpture with the inscription “CES 2019 Innovation Award” on the table and the attention that comes with being an honoree at the world’s biggest tech show, the CES in Las Vegas.

Read more: CES Las Vegas: Entering the 5G-powered ‘data age’

After all, more than 4,500 companies exhibit their most innovative and new products here every year, to audiences exceeding 100,000 visitors.

Instead for Lora DiCarlo it meant no official booth, no award, no CES this year. A misunderstanding? Or does Ose, the robotic pleasure toy for women that the startup wanted to present, not pass the CTA’s standard of decency?

‘Immoral, obscene, indecent, profane’

So what happened? In September, Lora Haddock, CEO and founder of the startup Lora DiCarlo, submitted Ose for the CES Innovation Award in the Robotics and Drone product category.

Lora Haddock (Lora DiCarlo)

Lora Haddock is determined to change the face of Sex Tech. “Proudly sex-positive, our goal is to create products and educational resources that promote female and LGBTQI sexual empowerment,” she says

Ose is the startup’s first product — a hands-free pleasure device for women developed in collaboration with the robotics lab of Oregon State University by a team of almost entirely female engineers. “It combines micro-robotic technology and bio-mimicry for an experience that feels just like a real partner,” Lora DiCarlo says in a product ad.

In early October, the company was notified that its personal massager passed the independent panel of judges and was indeed selected as a CES 2019 Innovation Awards honoree in that category.

“My team rejoiced and celebrated,” wrote Haddock in an open letter, published on Monday. “A month later our excitement and preparations were cut short when we were unexpectedly informed that the administrators at CES and CTA were rescinding our award and subsequently that we would not be allowed to showcase Ose, or even exhibit at CES 2019.”

Asked why the award was revoked, CTA told the company that it reserved the right to disqualify any entry “deemed by CTA in their sole discretion to be immoral, obscene, indecent, profane or not keeping with CTA’s image.”

“All we heard was: Sounds a lot like you don’t like women creating technological products for women in sexual health,” Haddock told DW at a press event on the sidelines of CES, where the startup got the chance to present its Ose after all, even if not on the CES show floor.

Later on, CTA administrators revised the explanation. “The product referenced does not fit into any of our existing product categories and should not have been accepted for the Innovation Awards Program,” the CTA told DW in a statement.

“CES does not have a category for sex toys. CTA had communicated this position to Lora DiCarlo nearly two months ago and we have apologized to them for our mistake.”

Haddock called this “an even more insulting and frankly ridiculous assertion”, pointing out the close collaboration with the robotics lab of Oregon State University, one of the most highly ranked in the country, in the designing process of Ose.

Double standards?

“The question we keep asking ourselves is: Is women’s sexual health and wellness not innovative, not worthy of innovation?” Haddock told DW. She accuses the organizers of CES of double standards when it comes to allowing male versus female sexuality on the show floor.

“Men’s sexuality is allowed to be explicit with a literal sex robot in the shape of an unrealistically proportioned woman and VR [virtual reality] porn. Female sexuality, on the other hand, is heavily muted if not outright banned,” she said. 

Read more: Women grapple with Silicon Valley’s bro culture

Sexism and gender bias at CES is an ongoing issue. From “booth babes,” scantily clad women hired to show off products on the show floor, and all male panels of keynote speakers to the lack of female-focused products on the floor — the accusations return every year.

This year, the CTA has seemingly made an effort to demonstrate its dedication to diversifying. Fifty percent of the keynote speakers were women. And on Tuesday the CTA announced a $10 million investment in firms and funds focused on “women, people of color and other underrepresented startups and entrepreneurs.”

And yet, as the Ose case demonstrates, there is still a long way to go. Lora Haddock and her colleagues are trying to stay positive. After all, the incidence has attracted a lot of attention. She hopes it will set something in motion.

“What we are really trying to do is legitimize the conversation about women in sex tech and women in tech, period. People that have vaginas get to be here too.”

  • Codi, a story-telling robot for children

    CES 2019: More refinements than breakthroughs

    Children’s helper outside of the classroom

    At CES 2019, you can say hello to Codi. It’s a new interactive storytelling robot for kids, meant to provide them with developmental support. It allows access to hundreds of songs, stories and lessons for free. Codi boasts some artificial intelligence as it can learn from a child’s usage patterns to become more personalized, Miami-based creator Pillar Learning claims.

  • The interior of Byton's M-Byte electric vehicle

    CES 2019: More refinements than breakthroughs

    Tesla, BMW and others to feel the Byte

    Chinese startup Byton is presenting a huge 48-inch video panel stretching across the upper part of the dashboard of its M-Byte electric vehicle. With a screen as big as that, there’s no doubt that selling content will be at least as important for the company as selling cars in the future. Another, smaller screen near the steering wheel provides access to most control functions.

  • Harley Davidson's LiveWire motorbike

    CES 2019: More refinements than breakthroughs

    A product for live wires

    Also debuting at CES 2019 is Harley Davidson’s electric LiveWire motorcycle. Fans can already preorder the motorbike which sells at a retail price of a little under $30,000 (€26,100). If used in mixed city/highway driving, prepare to recharge after 110 miles (177 kilometers). According to electrek’s website, the LiveWire is a motorcycle without a clutch or gears.

  •  An Air 100 selfie drone

    CES 2019: More refinements than breakthroughs

    Selfie sticks 2.0

    A group of innovative engineers from Shanghai and Italy are bending over backward to make consumers switch from ordinary selfie sticks to their AirSelfie models — pocket-sized drones with inbuilt aerial cameras called Air 100, Air Zen and Air Duo. The models will go on sale in the course of this year, first in Canada and the US, but later also in Sweden, Finland, Greece and a dozen other nations.

  • Samsung Bot Care, a healthcare robot

    CES 2019: More refinements than breakthroughs

    Hoping for healthy profits

    South Korea’s Samsung wants to secure its market share in products monitoring people’s health and well-being. The company’s Bot Care robot, unveiled in Las Vegas, aims to assist people in their daily health routines, that is people who are aware of any such routines. The robot can take your vital health data such as blood pressure and heart rate, and can also monitor your sleep cycles.

  • Somnox Sleep Robot

    CES 2019: More refinements than breakthroughs

    Pillow talk master

    No more nights spent tossing and turning is what the Somnox Sleep Robot promises the well-disposed buyer. The makers say it will make good on this promise by letting the robot regulate your breath, provide the best sound to both fall asleep faster and wake up naturally. It could become your ideal companion at night as “it won’t hog the duvet,” as The Times puts it.

  • Ganzin Aurora eye tracker module

    CES 2019: More refinements than breakthroughs

    Ganzin surely a CES ‘eye-light’

    Taiwan’s Ganzin Technology engineering startup is assisted by top minds from the fields of psychology and human behavior. The company’s latest eye-tracking module called Aurora aims to further unlock the potential of the human eye as the ultimate interface with the digital world. It can control a variety of functions using eye movement.

    Author: Hardy Graupner



Credit: Source link

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