iSex: How pornography has revolutionised technology
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Independent Minds
Super 8 projectors
The Super 8 projector rose to popularity due in part to the large amount of pornographic content which was quickly available for it.
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It's the unspoken rule in the world of technology; sex innovates. For generations, the urge to create, disseminate and watch pornography has driven many of the great technological advances we now take for granted.
Click on the image to launch our guide to how pornography has propelled technological innovation.
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Copyright 2009 Independent News and Media Limited
Comments
With Mr Plod's usual competence that meant that fathers taking photo of newborn on rug (very popular in those days) could find themselves in the cells. As widely reported. As now, photographing the wrong things could also land you in trouble.
That was one of the ways censorship was maintained, and was also one of the reasons why home developing became so popular.
It was a standing joke during the period while video cameras were to be hired that most of them went out of the shop accompanied by a wide selection of studio lighting.
Granted, pornography has helped the inventors of many of these technologies make gazillions. However, the basis that the porn industry has pushed the bar for any of them is false advertising from the Independent to sell a headline. I'm disappointed...
The pornographic industry will always gravitate towards whatever can push distribution further, faster and cheaper, and this article merely points out the technologies that have made smut available to all...
But there is substantial truth that the superior Betamax format lost out to the inferior VHS system because VHS became the chosen format of the porn industry. Satellite TV and the internet both indirectly promoted themselves on the ability to bring proper porno into your own living room or bedroom (no more Pee Wee Herman moments in that cinema in Soho) free from prudish government censorship (as Stephen Fry once put it "I expected fisting, felching and big Johnny Holmes but what did I get? Rubbish that's what I got!") and the embarrassment you might feel bumping into the vicar when coming out of Private Books Unlimited (or even worse bumping into him in there!) - the internet will be good for your kids learning (nod and wink).
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
nazi should have won the war . they had the best uniforms. . . that kind a thing pls.
War develops most of the infrastructure technology, porn uses the technology as a delivery mechanism. But for the most part porn is not the primary driver - it competes with many other consumer needs. Eg, VOIP was created for organisations to use their intranet nework for free internal calls, across the building, towns and countries. It wasnt dirty calls that created the VOIP protocol. Also, the internet (tcp/ip network) carries a lot of porn content, but the network was designed for the US military initially.
I suppose the article is a bit tounge-in-cheek in its assumptions regarding the reasons for inventing many of the technologies.
The inventor explained that it could be used for exercise on the space station. A young lady and I just looked at each other as we both identified a more down-to-earth market.
The internet also allows me to publish my work, as years ago one had to get into a gallery or a similar establishment.
You can check out my photo's on www.smarttog.com No porn but you will like the photo's....
In a similar way, unlicenced copying - so-called piracy of software and media - has funded the development of computer hardware and networking for the last thirty years. Your computer would not be so fast, graphically and aurally capable, or well-connected without the influence of casually copied material. Money that went into hardware would not have been available had it been spent on every software licence, and the resulting lack of richness in user experiences would make one wonder about the point of pervasive computing.
The two meet in that porn gets the least regard for copyright of all, and benefits the most from technically illicit but ignored copying - its spread and growth is unstoppable precisely because it is so easily available, with new audience members finding their preferred viewing niche constantly and quickly.
Most human economic activity over the past 100,000 years has been driven by sexual desire. The surprise is that people today would expect this to have changed.