The Thing ist that: Nobody likes or uses it, till someone comes up with a great solution for it. Three years ago, we could have the exact same discussion about Internet browsing on mobile phones. Till the iPhone arrived, what lead us to a new generation of phones, you _could_ browse the Internet but it was a pain in the ass. Nowadays, I do it without thinking about it.
Tim On 28 Jan., 22:27, Casper Bang <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
