Jetsons and iChat

The popular 1970s cartoon Jetsons featured a device called the Picture Phone. It was a phone with video, functionally no different than Apple's iChat with video. In one episode Judy the wife donned a wig in order to receive a picture call--possibly from George's employer. The Picture Phone required a different preperation for interaction than telephones without video; rather than simply clearing our throats we will be grabbing for wigs and makeup with new video phones. The Jetson's Picture Phone captured Judy's groggy wake-up moment of insobriety.

iChat captures moments of insobriety too. I captured my friend Katrina falling asleep in New York at 2:00AM, 6, Sept 2006, while Im in Vancouver, 11:00PM. We were chatting but then she fell asleep.

UPDATE: Applke incorporated video camera and microphones in their new iMacs and laptops. Another great idea from Apple. The little video eye staring at me seemed a little eerie. And sure enough, it is dangerous: i caught a 2 second glimpse of my friend full-on stroking his bone in front of his iMac; he must have hit the accept button on iChat. It was the best laugh I've ever had. At any rate, BE CAREFUL OUT THERE! I'm now waiting for a wily black-hat peeping hackers to control someone's Apple video camera.

On a similar note: Skype is largely doing Voice over the Internet (VOIP); they added Video to their software in a recent release. Nevertheless, the make money through voice calls to landlines. This seems a bit dated model. Did eBay overpay $2 billion for Skype. I think so, but we shall see.