Videophones Revisited

amitupadhyay7 writes "The NYTimes is running a story on Video Phones. ...more than 30 percent of American homes now have much faster 'pipes' coming into their homes: broadband Internet. Apple exploited this situation, for example, with its $140 iSight camera, a pocketcam that clips onto a Macintosh screen for free, high-quality Internet video calls. Now a company called Viseon has taken the next step by creating an actual video telephone called the VisiFone... in a related news Cisco is adding video to their IP phones. Telcos' response so far seems constructive."

Comments

Ease of use

[FrostedWheat]

Strange how they always seem to be trying to make video phones. What practical advantage does it have over ordinary audio-only phones? If anything, I'd say normal phones are easier to use!

Re:Ease of use

[phillymjs]

What practical advantage does it have over ordinary audio-only phones?

Hmm.... well, theoretically, it would put a complete end to the concept of the blind date (if it's not dead already), much like teleportation would kill the concept of the alibi.

Considering that today's youth, when observed in AOL chat rooms, won't even talk to someone else in the room without seeing a photo of them first, I think videophones are ready to be adopted en masse... they just need to be cheap enough for those same dumb kids to be able to afford.

~Philly

Re:Ease of use

[ScrewMaster]

... much like teleportation would kill the concept of the alibi.

I see you've read some Larry Niven. And teleportation probably wouldn't kill the alibi: his assumption was that teleportation would be anonymous, and what are the odds of that happening in anything like modern society? You'd probably need a retinal scan or some other foolproof biometric I.D. just to transport yourself to the local McDonald's, and your transmat usage would no doubt be logged for use by law enforcement, your employer, your wife's divorce lawyer, your mistress, or whoever wants to know where you've been.

Personally....

[clifgriffin]

I think this is one futuristic invention we can put on the shelf.

Does anyone really need/want it? I have 2 or 3 friends with webcams. Very occassionaly we'll turn them on, have fun with them for an hour tops and then turn them off for a month.

It just isn't that entertaining to see the person you are talking to. It's uneccessary information and kind of defeats some of the advantages to having a phone. :)

I can think of a lot better uses of our bandwidth.

My opinion, I'll never use one. But that's just my opinion.

doomed again

[Anonymous Coward]

Video phones may have a small chance in the office.
But they have zero chance at home.
Numerous attempts at home deployment all failed
because people don't want to comb their hair before
answering the phone. If they answer with the
camera off, then the callers always chides them to
turn it on. The social pain kills the system.

catch-22

[bkaddy]

"That's right: Who on earth has a cable modem but not a computer?" I don't see anyone paying $600 for a video phone when they could drop $100 on a webcam and use the free video-chat features of AIM or MSN Messenger which they most likely already use. Thats what the earth scientists are doing!