Today it seems everyone has acell phone . In fact , cell phone may eventually send landline the way of the dinosaur . As we bank more and more on our cell earpiece , we want to do more than just verbalize – we require to send textbook messages , e - ring armour , surf theInternet . And if picture conferencing is an choice – well , we ’ll in all likelihood take it .
Imagine being on the telephone and being able to watch the other person ’s facial expressions and body language . Sometimes just a smile or a disinterested look can speak volume . video recording conferencing promise that ability , and the feature article is n’t far from mainstream grasp . It most probable will become timeworn as prison cell earpiece companies embrace3Gtechnology . 3 G , which refers to the third generation of cellular engineering science , means improved cell phone networks and more advanced features , including video conferencing . Prior cellular phone phone generations – 1 G and 2 M – used analog and digital technology , respectively .
People are n’t ordinarily satisfied with just sound or just image . It only took a few decade for sound to be added to movies , making " talkies " the norm . Oddly , however , thetelephonedidn’t keep abreast courting . Though it ’s been around for over a century , video recording feeds link up to speech sound are n’t received for the telephone . You ’d think by now , with all our technical ingenuity , we ’d be George Jetson , need videophone calls at workplace .
So , what ’s been the hold up ? Why did n’t video telephone snap on in the past and what will make it standard now ?
Video Telephony Flops: Before Cell Phone Video Conferencing Technology
Why has n’t video telephony hit the mainstream in the U.S. yet , as it has in other countries ? For a few reasons , actually – and , interestingly , it ’s not for deficiency of technology . The technology has been around since at least the mid-1960s , when Bell System ( nowAT&T ) present its " Picturephone " at the World ’s Fair in New York . The Picturephone gave users a two - way bootleg - and - white video feed between those at the fair and other users in Disneyland .
After complaint about the phone ’s usability and its small screen , the ship’s company continued to pull off the product and hold off selling it until 1970 [ source : AT&T ] . The Picturephone used three wire : one for two - way of life sound , one for one - way video and one for one - style picture going the diametrical direction [ source : Noll ] . When it was released , executives had high expectations for the Picturephone and drooled in anticipation of it becoming a household particular in the next decennium .
That thirstiness was n’t slaked . The Picturephone ’s powerful price ( not to name its hefty size of it ) keep it from flying off shelf . AT&T tried again with a dissimilar video conferencing phone in 1992 , call the Videophone 2500 [ reference : Noll ] . Instead of three conducting wire , it only used one , which mean it had to compress both the audio and video data point ( a process we ’ll hash out in item later on ) . Compression hurt the quality of both the video and the audio recording , and the ware failed to ingrain consumers .
The job with the videophone was that it was only useful for the buyer if his or her friend and family members also possess videophones . Why bribe an expensive toy dog that you’re able to never use ? In the end , it was a cruel cycle – no one was buying it because no one else was buying it .
Many conjecture another factor contribute to the videophone ’s historical washout . It seems masses simply did n’t wish to add a visual to their phone call option – in fact they preferred no visual at all . One of the things the great unwashed like about a purely audio phone conversation is that you do n’t have to occupy how you look . you could talk to someone before you ’ve had your morning exhibitor or even in your underwear .
Nonetheless , by the 21st century , people embark on to espouse a standardized engineering –webcams . Webcams enable users to engage in TV conversations over a personal computer . With modern technology and the popularity of the cell phone , the old underdog video telephone has emerged again . Is 3 G engineering lifting the videophone from the ashes ? Read on to find out .
Modern Cell Phone Video Conferencing Technology
It was once thought that people would n’t be interested in video conferencingcell phonesbecause they could n’t apply them on the move ( in other words , they ’d be take the air down the sidewalk bump into people or lampposts while they tried to use the feature ) . But the popularity oftexting , which is every bit as hazardous , eradicate this doubtfulness , and major cubicle phone companies now are equipping cubicle phones with the feature and crab up networks .
The major challenge to transmitting digital video recording is that it ask send a swell deal of data – much more datum than sound requires . So , a prison cell sound with video conferencing needs to be able-bodied to institutionalise and receive a large amount of info . If you ’ve readHow Cell phone Work , you get laid that , although innovative cell phones are digital mechanism , they send information overradiosignals and only have a limited amount ofbandwidthwith which to work . Bandwidth , which is really a range of oftenness , can be press out in units – such as , thousand of bits per 2nd ( kbps ) or millions of bits per 2d ( Mbps ) . Bandwidth is an denotation of how much ( and how immobile ) information can be sent over a given communicating link .
Even with more powerful 3 GiB connection , it would be impractical and prison term - consuming to direct every bit of digital video recording info over a cell phone connection . So , instead , the cell telephone employvideocompression . This process involves reducing the digital data that ask to be sent – in core , whittling the digital file down to a manageable size . Compression can ask finding insistent information and using shortcut code . The receiving cellular phone telephone set would then merely need to decode the crosscut and expand the file again .
Video compression can also mean chuck out information . We can easily part with much of this selective information because it ’s just unperceivable to the human optic . Often , to make the digital data file small enough , densification discard so much data that the lineament of the video noticeably suffer .
Because digital video densification is essential , experts incessantly make toward inventing concretion methods that reduce the information without degrading video quality . Video can be compress in two shipway :
In an sweat to standardize compaction methods across company and industries , the Moving Picture Experts Group has come up with standards , such as theMPEG-4 , which employs the object - based method .
Improved television compression is an example of betterspectralefficiency(getting the most out of limited bandwidth ) , which is what make 3 G cellular technology more advanced than its predecessors . Another significant ingredient that has made 3 G phones potential is the development of silicon chip that do more ( include video contraction ) without sucking power from the phone’sbattery . These are know ashigh - performance , low - power microchips .
But it takes more than these technical advances to make video conferencing cell phones a reality . On the next page , we ’ll take a looking at at 3 G web availability . Without it , you wo n’t be talking face to face with anyone via cell phone .
3G Networks: Bringing Video Conferencing Cell Phones to the People
Now that we know what technologycell phonesneed for picture conferencing , let ’s take a looking at at the networks call for to conduct the entropy . As we mentioned before , sending picture data postulate transmitting a great great deal of information . More powerful cell telephone networks permit us to relay more information than we could with 2 G engineering .
As cadre earpiece companies update their transmission tower with powerful 3 G equipment , the networks can stock more selective information quicker . Specifically , they set aside users to send between 144 kbps and 2.4 Mbps [ rootage : Patterson ] . These speed make it potential to video conference with the somebody you ’re phone .
But if you rush out and buy a 3G - equal to phone , do n’t require to turn it on and immediately talk face to boldness with a friend . Your ability to utilise TV conferencing depends not only on whether you have a phone with that feature , but also on whether a 3 G internet is available in your area . Now that cell phone company likeAT&T , Sprint and Verizon have decided there ’s a grocery store for video conferencing and other 3 G features , they ’re work to make it available . But they ’ll lead off this process in urban surface area , likeNew Yorkor Los Angeles before they finally make 3 one thousand available all over the U.S.
People living in Japan , on the other hand , are already using the avail – and have been using it for a while . Japan and Europe are ( in some ways ) before of the U.S. when it comes to cellular technology . The grounds is that Japan and these European commonwealth are geographically smaller than the U.S. It takes few 3 universal gravitational constant cellular phone phone towers to cover everyone in Japan than it does to cover everyone in the U.S. In summation , some theorize that Americans are slower to gift in advanced cell telephone set features because the U.S. has such reliable land line service compared to the rest of the world [ root : Bora ] .
Will the vicious cycle be broken ? Will Americans still refuse to cough up supererogatory cash for telecasting conferencing cell phones , thinking family and supporter wo n’t purchase them ?
Many think that when video recording conferencing is include on democratic phone model more people will have the feature and therefore more people will want the feature of speech . Rumors floated around that Apple would include video conferencing on its second propagation of iPhones . But that was just a pipework dream – the new iPhone will not include that feature , though it does admit other 3 G feature .
Who ’s to say whether telecasting conferencing will ever become as received in the U.S. as text edition electronic messaging ? For more information on your cubicle earphone and other telecommunication devices , investigate the links on the next page .
