It is the future.

[mmcirvin]

Jorie and I just had an extended videophone conversation with my dad.

Videophones are one of those things like flying cars and directed-energy sidearms that are perennial signifiers of The Future. The standard line about videophones, when people are making wisecracks about science fiction, is that the technology has been around for decades but it turned out that nobody wants it. This is not true. What people saw working decades ago was a World's Fair demo, which of course is trivial to rig even with 1940s technology, since it's nothing but a simple CCTV hookup and the only network you need is a video cable.

The sticking point was always upstream bandwidth from the home; the upstream bandwidth necessary for half-decent home videophones really has only existed since various forms of broadband Internet started to become common (not to mention elaborate digital video compression schemes). So the videophones that have existed since the 1990s work as software on your webcam-enabled computer, just like Murray Leinster predicted in 1946 in "A Logic Named Joe" (along with dozens of other predictions in that story that came true).

Now cell phones routinely come with cameras, though the wireless upstream bandwidth for live video calls isn't quite there yet.

That said, it is true that you really don't need or want a video hookup much of the time, for reasons of privacy, etiquette, and not being bothered to go to the effort of playing to the camera; and for many conversations video is simply not useful. (As others have observed, the mobile cameraphone more than doubles the utility of the camera just by pointing it in the other direction--you're showing people what you're looking at, not just your own face.)

On the other hand, there is a gigantic, obvious built-in market for home videophones in the classic science-fiction mold, and that is grandparents. There's nothing like being able to show Dad the baby in live video.

Comments

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

"What people saw working decades ago was a World's Fair demo"

Somewhat later (around 1965) was AT&T's PicturePhone. It can be seen in the movie 2100.

This was intended as a commercial application. It didn't sell.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Hmm... it sounds as if the hardware requirements for this were relatively modest (some additional twisted-pair cables from the house) but it still required some extra installed wires for what was essentially a one-trick pony. Maybe that's the key: people won't spend a lot to get a videophone installed but it's something they'd like if it piggybacks cheaply on other applications.

Also, there was still a big unsolved problem with network bandwidth further upstream if they had managed to sell a lot of them.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...It does appear, though, that this is the source of the "there is no market for videophones" canard.

[iayork.livejournal.com]

I've also just started playing with video conferencing (because of the iSight in my macbook pro). In my case it's not so much grandparents as uncles, aunts, and cousins, who are scattered across the globe.

What I want to see (and what will be present in MacOS10.5, if I've understood the preview comments correctly) is a way to switch the video to the screen of the computer from which you're sending. It will make calls with my collaborators SO MUCH easier if I can show them what's going on and make real-time changes while talking to them. I guess there are applications that claim to do that now, but they either didn't sound too confident, or were too expensive, or both. I can wait until Leopard is out.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

If my contacts had Macs and iChat, things would be so much nicer; unfortunately they all seem to have standardized on Skype, and the Mac Skype client is very much a version 1.0 and doesn't produce very good video quality on PowerPC Macs. (I've heard that the last beta was actually better, but haven't tried the experiment.)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...Excuse me, it's 2.0. Still feels like a 1.0.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...Just downgraded to the beta (2.0.0.3), and the rumors are right... it's a huge improvement over the final version!

[iayork.livejournal.com]

I've been using Skype, too, for the most part -- not only is it the only thing that works well with PCs from my Mac, it also seemed to handle a firewall much better than did iChat.

How is the downgraded Skype better than the official version? Incoming, or outgoing? I gather my outgoing image wasn't too bad, but the incoming video of my brother was pretty awful. I blamed his cheap webcam, could it be Skype trying to skimp on processing?

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

My impression was that it was outgoing--all I know is that the preview in the preferences pane looks worse.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

I think it was 'Demolition Man' that had people crankcalling videophones in order to catch people nude

[aderack.livejournal.com]

I'm more interested in The Alternate Future. Pneumatic tubes and zeppelins all the way!

[eb-oesch.livejournal.com]

I do believe you mean Intelli-Tubes. And it's not the Alternate Future, it's the future that hasn't arrived yet -- assuming, that is, that humanity isn't on a monorail to oblivion (http://www.zapatopi.net).

I'm not sure about the Zeppelins though. I'm inclined to view the blimp scene in Batman as an effort by those in power to convince the orthonoids that the scene they are watching is fictional. There is a clear implication in the film that the mass aerial nerve-gassing of American citizens is a thing that is not actually happening.

I recently saw a claim that there existed just 36 blimps in the world. It's amazing what some people will believe.

Fujifilm, for Christ's sake! Why is the blimp really there? If it was there to sell film, don't you think your neighbors would have bought some by now?

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I have long been of the belief that the monorail is a step in the wrong direction; passing from two rails to one can only be regress, not progress. Thus the tri-rail. The ZEPPELIN-TOWED tri-rail (http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/kibology/telephene.html), pulled by a troika of mighty airships.

A Logic Named Joe

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

The story referred to above was adapted for radio in the "X-Minus-One" series, which has an awesome intro, and can be heard in Spaceship Radio Podcast (http://spaceshipradionetwork.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=67028). The podcaster who does the intro isn't always that interesting to listen to, but his Canadian+Geek accent is! And "A Logic Named Joe" features the brattiest brat to ever appear in SF.