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Are Video Phones Back From The Dead?
gwizah writes: "A company by the name of Vialta is peddling a new product all you future loving geek's can enjoy, A VideoPhone! Yes, Im sure you can all remember the many attempts to bring video-phonecall technology into the home or office, but unlike the flying car, you can pick up a pair at Fry's today! According to some reviews at USA Today and the WSJ, the product works as advertised. A new way to call Grandma? Or just another silly little toy to collect dust in that hall closet."
Just curious - whenever some thing comes along with a "novel" method of communication - people have to immediately try to push it on my grandma.
"Have the kids call Grandma this"
"Grandma can see the kids that"
I mean, I cant even get my grandma to look at a computer - and she is mostly deaf, where email would really help her.
but she hates technology - just write a letter she says.
we all know that it will be the young technophiles that will be early adopters, so you should say things like:
"get a new girlfriend with this nifty whiz bang video phone that shows your technical prowess"
Well the phone design is cool, and it seems great for voyeurs. Call a random girl, say it is a bad number and send the end-of-connection video then black screen, she thinks the call is over, but you're still behind the cam! ;-) ;-)
Sounds good!
Forget about "geekiness is next to godliness," why would I need it?
The only reason I'd want the video would be to convey additional information. Like putting a document close to the camera so they can read it.
But the screen's too small for that.
My guess is that new families (if they aren't broke) will want it so they can see what their kids made in school.
What's this Submit thingy do?
What they need with video phones is for the video camera to be behind the screen (in the top third), so you can make eyecontact. Otherwise you're just talking to someone while you're watching a video of them and it ends up being weird.
Of course, I don't think it's possible (at least not for a reasonable price) to do that yet, and that is the thing holding back videophones, and it's logical successor, telepresence/teleimmersion (I prefer the word telepresence, more appropriate).
Telepresence is where you sit in front of a videoscreen, and behind the screen is an array of video cameras. same thing on the other side (person you're "viewing"). So when you both sit down, it's just like sitting across the table from someone (in theory, at least).
This product IS at last very close to being consumer friendly.
:-D
A: Invisible... Needs no extra software/hardware other than a standards compliant video phone on the other end...
B: Backwards compatible.... Works with standard phones... even rotary..
C: Non-complex... Requires no additional parts... nor includes unecasary parts.... such as including a phone as part of the unit would stop home users from being able to use their own phones easily...
D: WYSIWYG.... the device is straight forward and involves no special instructions beyond press button after phone is answered.
On the bad side
A: device reuires you to press buton and confirm if the other person has a video phone before hand... "hey you got video?", "yea, but i dont wanna link"... etc.... The phones should detect if the other has video and have a simple alert on the LCD saying "video link possible, start video?". This eliminates a user anoyance that will slow Sales...
b: the device is not high enough quality for user satisfaction.... plain and simply 15fps in best conditions is not good enough... in NY city the phone lines here are so bad i get a 28.8 connect at home... even with a 56k modem... The makers need to find a very very very high video compression algorithm... anything less just isnt gonna satisfy the user.... plus... if a better algorithm is devised in the future how compatible will these phones be?
c: the last issue is that 30 second delay when commence video... plain and simply this is the largest hurdle... and is probably technicaly required in such a manner that it may never be fixed without a major change in our phone lines. sadly this is the one that will most likely kill this best iteration.
for those saying... "why not just use my webcam"..
Web cams suck... are inconsistent as a consumer whole.. require special software and a computer, are far less mobile being tehered to a computer, are complex to set up (comparitivly), are as bad as this product in 90% of homes without the high speed bandwidth... are greatly less likely to be set-up in remote areas... etc.... The bottom line... web cams are not invisible.. and require technical maintenece/know-how....
lastly... Cell phones will probably be the way this video phoning actualy enter consumer hands... everyone buys cell phones... the advent of web services on them has introduced color and pictures to them... and the next step is simply to put small video cameras in them... like in japan...
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
It's not like the video is always on... It is never on when you first answer the phone, and you only need to turn it on when you want to give someone your complete attention, but you can leave it off when you are busy with something else.
There's really no way to transmit much useful info over copper wires that have been at more or less the same specifications since the telephone was patented by Bell.
The future of the videophone (if there actually is a future) is wireless broadband, whether it is 3G cell phone tech (which should have the bugs worked out in a year or so or wireless networking. But it will never be popular.
This is why:
I could set up videophoney with my broadband connection right now -- and set it up for my friends too -- probably in about a day. But demand, as far as I can tell, is zilch. Let's face it: the face we put on outdoors is, for many of us that aren't naturally built and beautiful, and PITA. How wonderful it is that we can still sit around at home sweaty, stinky, and half naked and yet still interact with our friends, and they still think we are cool.
Somehow I just don't think the vid phone will *ever* catch on. The video-free phone just has so many advantates over it, why should anyone want to take a step backwards in technology?
I can sum up why it will in one word:
Porn
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