Not all Gadgets change the World VII
They keep on coming, that technology that was supposed to change the world - but never even made an impact.
At Enigin we love our gadgets, as we know many Enigin Distributors also do.
So here is the seventh of technology that didn’t change the world.
7. Picture Phone - 1963
Now that nearly every phone has a Webcam, sexting, online conferencing, and viral phone videos are all the rage. Even so, the idea of a video phone is actually quite ancient.
Developed at Bell Labs was back in 1956, the PicturePhone was released as an actual product in the Chicago area in 1963. Unlike smartphones and webcams, the PicturePhone operated over regular telephone lines. Unfortunately, when operating over long distances, it consumed as much bandwidth as 300 regular telephone calls, making them prohibitively expensive. However, Bell Labs hoped to make the technology more efficient over time.
The PicturePhone never caught on, though, because people were afraid that the device would be used for spying on them. But what if it had? The PicturePhone was expected to reach three million homes and offices by the mid-1980s, generating $5 billion a year in 1965 dollars — roughly $30 billion today, adjusted for inflation.
The AT&T monopoly, strengthened with all that extra revenue, would have won the anti-trust lawsuit that led to its breakup and ended up as the universal Internet service provider in the United States, pushing smaller companies (like IBM) into the margins.
Sorry I couldn’t find a video of an AT&T PicturePhone.
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