Ohhhh this definitely warrants Dick Wall room punishment. You cannot question Dick Wall's predictions. He said make it so, why aren't you out there making it work? Shame on you!
"We don't need video because it is far too restrictive" Actually we do. I'm quite uncomfortable with the fact that people I talk to could in theory be wanking! How many times have you talked to someone only to have this nagging feeling of their mind being somewhere else(think of Thor Norbye and his suppossed "coding" during podcasts). Well with video all that goes away and once again you can have a normal conversation. On Jan 28, 9:48 pm, Reinier Zwitserloot <[email protected]> wrote: > Dick suggested that there will be an iPhone gadget to bend the light > around to the camera in #227. Was that a joke? That is completely > ridiculous. > > Nobody cares about video calling. Here in the Netherlands it worked > technically, it didn't have any extra costs (other than, at the time, > a relatively expensive phone), and I had one, and so did a few of my > friends. We never video called. They never video called. There was > some research that asked everyone with a video phone if they even > cared. Nobody did (had the phone for the nice big display, not for the > video calling feature). > > This makes sense: We're all used to the concept of a phone call. We > don't need video because it is far too restrictive (have to LOOK at > it, which, even if everyone walked around with a headset or the > quality of speakerphones was -phenomenally good-, is still annoying. > People call while walking, etcetera) for the meager benefits (attempt > to see emotion through pixellated grainy laggy video, joy!). In > particular, the main thing it tries to solve (convey emotion) is > already done quite adequately by voice. We already subconsciously > exaggerate our voice-based emotional cues when we make a phone call - > we (modern man) has interned the ability completely already. > > A video conference call is somewhat different - you're really sitting > down for that one, and you are prepared. Therein lies the key: With > notebooks and subnotebooks already near ubiquitous, and the notebook > data revolution coming any day now (for you iPhone owners that did the > right thing and you jailbroke it - welcome to the revolution! Just > download pdanet and you're on your way!) - that's the future of video > calling. > > Mark my words: Video calling using mobile phones is a solution in > search of a problem. It'll never become popular. > > I'm not sure if apple has consciously decided that video calling is a > crock when they designed the iPhone, or if they went for the slightly > less definitive 'meh, we'll wait until someone else makes this work'. > Note also how absolutely nobody is complaining that iPhones have no > front cam. > > Either way, using glass or plastic to warp the camera around would > require a giant and very expensive widget, whereas your average simple > webcam costs maybe 5 bucks. Assuming you can pump the video data into > the iPod connector and the restrictive iPhone SDK allows you to get at > this data, a cheap dongle that contains its own camera would be far > more likely. That's presuming that people care about video calling - > which they don't. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
