1963 Calling

I remember the first time I used a videophone.  It was
1963, I was 10, and we were at the Bell Telephone pavillion at the New
York World’s Fair. I remember wondering how long it would take my
old man to get one. He was not an early adopter. 40 years later, waiting
for my videophone is starting to feel remarkably like waiting for the
Red Sox to win the world series.

Who knew it was a bandwidth problem? Now, it seems, videophones are
finally ready for prime time.  On our computers, at least.  Whether
they eventually take over the hand-held market as well remains to be
seen and will probably depend on what form the eventual standard all-in-one
electronic swiss army knife takes.

I know I want mine, at a minimum, to be a phone that works everywhere,
an easy to use PDA with some kind of functional keyboard, or virtual
keyboard, or something that takes advantage of the damn keyboarding skills
I’ve taken half a lifetime to master, and my main music playback device.  Stuff
like GPS and cameras are nice extras but not necessary.

Anyway, here is an interesting article from the New York Times Technology section
on the emerging explosion in video chat.,,

"It turns out that a PC user with a high-speed Internet connection,
a cheap Webcam and some software that may already be on hand can enjoy
a reasonable approximation of the videophone experience. "

from the New York Times