4 ms·

I remember seeing a land-line phone with video capability on a prime time talk show sometime in the 2000s as it was presented as a thing from the future. I'm gl

by _def 4y ago

I remember seeing a land-line phone with video capability on a prime time talk show sometime in the 2000s as it was presented as a thing from the future. I'm glad that never really took off :D

kristopolous 4y ago
They put a different meter on it and it was prohibitively expensive. ATT was early on a lot of technology such as working with MagicCap and Go. They had their own Hobbit processor. It was pretty cool tech until you saw the pricetag. Then you laughed, and laughed, tears rolled down your face ... $2,000 devices in 1995 money with $200/month usage bills being common (modern money is about double so think $4,000 tablet) Even if you got a couple price insensitive buyers, the technology is only useful if there's a network effect and that's where it broke down. You weren't emailing their phone, it was an inbox they'd see next time they dialup to logon to the internet. It wasn't some obvious gain and faxing documents was a more reliable way to get to someone because you're changing their environment with a fax
- zrules 4y ago
  There’s a movie directed by Wim Wenders called “Until the End of the World” with tech similar to this. It’s a Pay phones actually, where you’d flip the arm with the screen up attached up to make a call and down to end a call. The movie is really an alternate universe where tech like this is ubiquitous. There’s something about the late 90s / early 00s vision for tech future I have an increasingly difficult time grasping today.
  - kristopolous 4y ago
    features in the trailer around 30 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfFWBWKwQT8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfFWBWKwQT8 You want that era? Here's two things to flip through https://archive.org/search.php?query=mondo+2000 https://archive.org/search.php?query=mondo+2000 https://archive.org/search.php?query=verbum%20magazine https://archive.org/search.php?query=verbum%20magazine I went deep into that for back research on my most recent article https://siliconfolklore.com/internet-history/ https://siliconfolklore.com/internet-history/ I'll revisit it soon for something else I'm sure. Maybe the Douglas Rushkoff Cyberia world where this tech scene was entangled with the most hedonistic strains of new-ageism and overly indulgent on psychotropics - where a burner rambling about their dreams who won't live to see Y2K is somehow in the same car with a 25 year old stanford grad who just made $10 million and maybe just maybe how these ways of meaning somehow re-emerged together 20 years later to build the modern far right. That's not my theory here btw, that's what I've been hearing from the journalists that covered it in the 90s. Pulling those narratives together from an outsider perspective using primary source material ... that's my offer.
    - r_transpose_p 4y ago
      That description of the 1990s brings back memories for me.
jaclaz 4y ago
In Europe (France) there was a much earlier experiment (subsidized, the actual cost was astronomical) in the city of Biarritz: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32062275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32062275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16347686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16347686

by _def 4y ago

I remember seeing a land-line phone with video capability on a prime time talk show sometime in the 2000s as it was presented as a thing from the future. I'm glad that never really took off :D

kristopolous 4y ago

They put a different meter on it and it was prohibitively expensive. ATT was early on a lot of technology such as working with MagicCap and Go. They had their own Hobbit processor. It was pretty cool tech until you saw the pricetag. Then you laughed, and laughed, tears rolled down your face ... $2,000 devices in 1995 money with $200/month usage bills being common (modern money is about double so think $4,000 tablet) Even if you got a couple price insensitive buyers, the technology is only useful if there's a network effect and that's where it broke down. You weren't emailing their phone, it was an inbox they'd see next time they dialup to logon to the internet. It wasn't some obvious gain and faxing documents was a more reliable way to get to someone because you're changing their environment with a fax

zrules 4y ago
There’s a movie directed by Wim Wenders called “Until the End of the World” with tech similar to this. It’s a Pay phones actually, where you’d flip the arm with the screen up attached up to make a call and down to end a call. The movie is really an alternate universe where tech like this is ubiquitous. There’s something about the late 90s / early 00s vision for tech future I have an increasingly difficult time grasping today.
- kristopolous 4y ago
  features in the trailer around 30 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfFWBWKwQT8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfFWBWKwQT8 You want that era? Here's two things to flip through https://archive.org/search.php?query=mondo+2000 https://archive.org/search.php?query=mondo+2000 https://archive.org/search.php?query=verbum%20magazine https://archive.org/search.php?query=verbum%20magazine I went deep into that for back research on my most recent article https://siliconfolklore.com/internet-history/ https://siliconfolklore.com/internet-history/ I'll revisit it soon for something else I'm sure. Maybe the Douglas Rushkoff Cyberia world where this tech scene was entangled with the most hedonistic strains of new-ageism and overly indulgent on psychotropics - where a burner rambling about their dreams who won't live to see Y2K is somehow in the same car with a 25 year old stanford grad who just made $10 million and maybe just maybe how these ways of meaning somehow re-emerged together 20 years later to build the modern far right. That's not my theory here btw, that's what I've been hearing from the journalists that covered it in the 90s. Pulling those narratives together from an outsider perspective using primary source material ... that's my offer.
  - r_transpose_p 4y ago
    That description of the 1990s brings back memories for me.

jaclaz 4y ago

In Europe (France) there was a much earlier experiment (subsidized, the actual cost was astronomical) in the city of Biarritz: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32062275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32062275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16347686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16347686