From: Billy Brown (bbrown@conemsco.com)
Date: Mon Apr 26 1999 - 14:24:42 MDT
GBurch1@aol.com wrote:
> Videophones are a function of bandwidth and compression tech. Just as
soon
> as the cable companies get a large enough installed base of high-speed net
> connections, this is going to happen -- why shouldn't it, with high-res
video
> cameras now in the sub-$200 range?
Actually, IMO there is a simple, non-technological reason why videophones
will not emerge in the consumer market anytime soon: we don't want them.
I'm not interested, no matter how cheap it is, and neither is anyone else
that I know - and that includes a lot of techno-gadget addicts.
Businesses will want videophones for all sorts of good reasons - and they
already have them, and the prices are falling just like you predict.
Residential use will have to wait for a generation that doesn't mind
answering the thing in a bathrobe, or (more likely) for an image-editing AI
good enough that people won't be worrying about what they look like.
Billy Brown, MCSE+I
bbrown@conemsco.com
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