Linked by Eugenia Loli on Mon 16th Aug 2010 06:41 UTC
I've seen it so many times in the movies and TV: a person wakes up in this futuristic world, walks by his kitchen, and a computerized voice is telling him that someone is calling him. But instead of picking up a receiver, the call is actually a video-call, and his TV is used for the conversation. If you put 2 and 2 together, this is not really that futuristic. Having a camera attached on your TV, and a VoIP SIP or Skype connection with it, is not mad science. So why don't we already have this on our TVs?
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Member since:2005-09-17
What I mean is that one is not a substitute for another. The fact that just 1 in every 1000 calls I do are without video, does not mean I do not find video handy when I need it, and I do need it in that 1 out of 1000. The same way that you sms somethings, and instead send e-mails for others.
Member since:2007-03-26
What I mean is that one is not a substitute for another. The fact that just 1 in every 1000 calls I do are without video, does not mean I do not find video handy when I need it, and I do need it in that 1 out of 1000. The same way that you sms somethings, and instead send e-mails for others.
But that does matter though. No major electronics manufacturer will build the kind of TV set that Eugene is proposing if there's only demand for one video call in every thousand. In those circumstances, people will just stick with Skype (et al) than pay a premium for a device they're not going to utilise fully.
So it matters a lot given the context of this thread. It matters a lot that even yourself admit that you don't have a high demand for video calls. It matters because this thread isn't about exceptional usage, it's about normal calls on normal living room electronics and receiving these calls in a very normal and non-orchestrated way (ie someone unexpectedly rings and you proceed to chat to them via your TV set).
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Member since:
2007-03-26
But the vast majority of phone calls are just casual calls (not to mention the fact that the sci-fi that inspired this topic only features this technology in a casual sense)
Plus lets not forget that (and generally speaking) the technology that has prevailed in the past has been technology that's enabled a lazier or more casual approach to an existing method (texting, tweeting, facebook, etc).
So sure, this technology may succeed under exception circumstances, but topic is about normal usage by people who live normal lives.
Edited 2010-08-16 10:33 UTC