The first Picturephone test system, built in 1956, was crude - it transmitted an image only once every two seconds. But by 1964 a complete experimental system, the "Mod 1," had been developed. To test it, the public was invited to place calls between special exhibits at Disneyland and the New York World's Fair. In both locations, visitors were carefully interviewed afterward by a market research agency.People, it turned out, didn't like Picturephone. The equipment was too bulky, the controls too unfriendly, and the picture too small. But the Bell System was convinced that Picturephone was viable. Trials went on for six more years. In 1970, commercial Picturephone service debuted in downtown Pittsburgh and AT&T executives confidently predicted that a million Picturephone sets would be in use by 1980.
What happened? Despite its improvements, Picturephone was still big, expensive, and uncomfortably intrusive. It was only two decades later, with improvements in speed, resolution, miniaturization, and the incorporation of Picturephone into another piece of desktop equipment, the computer, that the promise of a personal video communication system was realized.
Why use skype when we already have the picturephone?
4 comments:
Remember when Dad would have liked nothing more than to engage any of us in a conversation about the money you could make predicting the future? I remember how excited he got about "fiber-optics" and "merchendise scanning".
He was right about both things. But, for investment purposes, a lesson here is that knowing the next wave is not enough to cash in on the next wave. Which is, perhaps, why Warren Buffet ignored hi tech and decided to put his money into Burlington Northern Railroad.
It was exciting to see some comments here. We've been concerned about the slow death of this family communication that I like to call "thee round robin". Intersting comments. Just think how excited
Dad would have been about all the high tech things available.
Remember Teledyne? Genentech? I heard about cell phones for the first time from Dad...
Remember Teledyne? Genentech? I heard about cell phones for the first time from Dad...
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