Adult entertainment powerhouse Pink Visual saw visits to its mobile video service soar after Christmas as people turned on new iPhones and tapped into porn.
Sex video makers and distributors are evolving with the technology times, catering to customers seeking satisfaction on smartphones, Blu-ray players and Internet television.
Digital Playground, which is credited with producing the first high-definition adult film five years ago, has a Web site devoted exclusively to Apple’s hot iPhones and offers free trailer “podcasts” for iPods.
CHANGING TACTICS
“The way people get their porn is changing,” Pink distribution operations manager Kim Kysar said as an annual Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas on Sunday. “It is going to be more personal and you get it anywhere you are: on the road, in the bathroom at work taking a break. Nobody is going to be the wiser.”
The number of visitors to Pink Web sites customized for mobile devices has rocketed for the past six months and 40 percent of the visitors become subscription-paying members.
“We saw a peak after Christmas when everybody got new video phones,” Kysar said. “One of the first things people do after activating their iPhones is Google ‘iPhone porn’ and here they are.”
Pink began as an Internet-based business so its videos are already broken into short clips for quick downloading.
“You can basically jump to the part you want to see,” Kysar said of presenting video in YouTube-style short-form. “If you jump to the last clip you get the climax scene. If you start at the beginning it is more soft-core. We’ve just done new encoding for new phones to make sure it looks good.”
Adult Entertainment giant Vivid Entertainment thrust itself into the “mobile space” early, particularly in Europe, where such content can be offered along with other telecom services, chief executive Steve Hirsch said.
Restrictions in the US limit smartphone users to reaching online porn by using Internet browsers.
“Revenue continues to increase with the roll-out of 3G,” Hirsch said, referring to a new-generation high-speed broadband network for mobile Internet service.
“The more phones that have video capability, the better it gets for us,” he said.
DVD SALES DOWN
Revenues from DVD sales, once the bulk of Vivid’s income, sank to 30 percent last year while online subscriptions, Internet video-on-demand and cable offerings became rising stars.
Digital delivery has yet to replace the money lost by decreasing DVD sales and brings with it piracy problems, Hirsch said.
“These are issues mainstream Hollywood is dealing with as well,” Hirsch said. “With new technology comes new issues, but ultimately people want to watch adult movies.”
Vivid shoots all its films in high-definition and is beefing up its library of titles in Blu-ray, adoption of which has boomed since being declared winner of a format war with HD DVD a year ago.
“We are interested in 3D for sure,” Hirsch said, cautioning that distributing special eyeglasses needed for such viewing is a challenge. “Certainly when you get Internet-enabled TVs it would make sense to go out and get those glasses distributed.”
High-resolution flat-panel televisions designed to link directly to Internet services were among an array of snazzy innovations unveiled at the international Consumer Electronics Show that ended in Las Vegas on Sunday.
“Obviously, the Internet is where it’s at,” Hirsch said. “We need to look to new technology and the future, as does Hollywood.”
While it may be slow in coming, the death of the neighborhood sex video shop appears inevitable, industry insiders said.
“Mobile and paid downloads is the way people are getting it,” Kysar said of porn. “They don’t want to have to return a rental or stash a DVD and worry about kids or relatives seeing their little smut collection.”
“How great would it be to have a porn Internet cafe?” she asked, dreamily peering into adult entertainment’s future. “Where it is private with cubicles — guys come in, log-on and hopefully don’t make a mess.”
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the