Zenith Phonevision. Did anyone have this way back? I never heard of it.

I was looking around online at old consoles due to the thread going on now about a cool console and happened into this.

It's pretty interesting. I never knew it existed. Anyone here remember this or used it?

http://www.earlytelevision.org/phonevision.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonevision

 

This is interesting. I didn't realize until recently that television sets were available in the early 1930's--when there was very little in the way of programming available. It was all experimental and only techno geeks and the curious rich owned sets.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that "Phonevision" never really caught on.....

 

Sorry. I put this in the wrong forum.

Can a Gort please move it to visual arts?

 

The one I remember the most from "future expos" and World Fairs and stuff like that was the Bell "PicturePhone," which AT&T demonstrated in 1964:



Kubrick had a different version on Moon spacecraft in 2001:



It's funny to consider that pretty much every smartphone available today will give you some kind of video capability in most parts of the country, depending on your reception. But even now, I think video-phone conversations are pretty rare. Hell, I text almost as much as I call nowadays, only because it's shorter and more to the point, with very little wasted time. If I can give somebody the information they need in two short sentences, vs. a 5-minute phone call, I'd much rather do the former.

 

I agree, and frankly, sometimes you just want text what you want to say with out actually speaking --let alone actually seeing them. Certain people can be very annoying on the phone.
The other point on want to make is that it's amazing how quickly we absorb the latest technology. Things that seemed so fanciful and "futuristic" at one point in the not so distant past become "so yesterday" so fast. "Tomorrow" becomes "yesterday" in the blink of an eye.

 

My wife uses FaceTime with her family all the time. We also used it a lot with each other when we were dating long-distance during college. I've been using it with my mom now, too, since she got an iPad for Christmas.

 

Interesting that there was so much talk about video phones decades ago, but now that we have it I rarely use it. The last thing I want to do is try to make myself presentable to talk to someone.

I have done it with family at Thanksgiving, but only with advance warning.

 

It can be helpful to do, and I've used FaceTime when I've had to diagnose computer problems over the phone with friends of mine. At least when they can point the phone/camera at the screen and say, "the computer is doing THIS!", I know exactly what they're talking about.

I realized in the late 1980s/early 1990s that even when our computer speed doubled, we got used to it in about a week. Suddenly, the rock-fast computer we bought a few days ago was old hat and tired, and then another week later we'd be back to screaming "hurry up!" at the machine. I've gone through this phenomena for at least 30 years now.

 

No one here use FaceTime?

 

Rarely use FaceTime. Mostly use Skype. Vidiot, have you ever tried TeamViewer for controlling/fixing other people's computers? Very handy app.

 

Cool Thread.

Now hearing about wearable "watches" smartphone devices in the news again, I would rather just read the comics from now on:

 

But Phonevision is actually a type of Pay Per View movie.

Chad

 

Just check out how fast some people deep-six the latest "smart" phone as soon as a smarter one comes along a few months later....

 

I wonder if they'll do this with the $10,000 solid gold Apple Watches a year from now...