Dario Betti, an analyst at London-based digital media consultancy Ovum, says: 'Like it or not, pornography drives each new, convenient visual technology, and 3G, which combines powerful new media applications, will be no different.'
Betti certainly has history on his side. If you are reading this article at home, you may not have any centrefolds stashed under the bed. You may disapprove of porn. But the spin-offs of the industry are all around you.
The camcorder and video machine you use to capture those memorable family moments - baby's first steps, weddings, holidays - use VHS tapes. US pornographers' decision to adopt the cheap convenient VHS - rather than rival Betamax - when the two systems were introduced in the 1970s killed off Betamax while sales of pornographic films drove take-up of video recorders.
Your DVD player may be great for watching out-takes of the Mike Myers' comedy Austin Powers II: The Spy Who Shagged Me, but it is real sex movies which have driven DVD sales because, unlike videotape, users can skip quickly to and from their favourite scenes. The pay-per-view cable or satellite TV movie channel is only available on your TV because pornographers pioneered subscription 'premium' services first in hotels and then on digital networks.
Did you watch the BBC's interactive coverage of Wimbledon on Sky's digital network last summer? Watching four games at once or changing the camera angle so you can watch your favourite player more closely may look new but it isn't. Pornographers perfected the technology a decade ago for an entirely different 'sport'.
And, then, there is the internet. If anyone ever doubted the power of sex to drive technological innovation, the internet proves it, several billion times over - every day. When the web was launched, the most popular word searches were 'sex' and 'porn' and it's still true. Service providers, including Yahoo! and Altavista, have begun excluding sex searches from their net use surveys because they skew the results and make them worthless.
Pornographic sites are also one of the few web services that make money. Forget the great dot.com crash, the Online Computer Library Centre's annual review of net use last year found 80,000 'major' adult websites, which generated profits of more than £1bn - more than any other e-commerce sector. Much of that money has been reinvested in developing leading-edge interactive services including 'virtual reality' sex games that allow users to 'join in' the action.
Porn providers have become so good at developing technology and making money online that mainstream e-businesses from banks to supermarkets are now asking its leading practitioners for advice.
Danni Ashe, an American 'erotic actress' who made millions selling nude pictures of herself on her own website - Danni's Hard Drive - is making a second career as a technological consultant and strategic adviser to large US corporations.
