The hearing impaired are very pleased to now be able to make phone calls among themselves, so I wouldn't call it a solution looking for a problem. And I suspect the video use case is a direct reason for why we can now enjoy 14.4Mbps bandwidth - and that drives other interesting use cases like live TV etc. even without DVB-H.
/Casper 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
