The Future Has Arrived, Presently Speaking…with Video Phones
I live pretty far into the future, or I should say that my brain does rather live far into the future, it rarely exists in the moment. This can be a bit of a problem and has been rather humiliating in the past. One such humiliating event happened not even a year ago when I’m sitting in class and the subject was that of voIP. We were talking about what it was and all the cool things that accompany it and at one point, my mouth opened before I even had time to think about what I saying…
“Video Phones are to us what the holograms were to Star Wars”
people just stared. Gawked actually. Mouths wide open wondering where I came from.
The professor:
“Courtney can you expand on that thought, please?”
I rolled my eyes thinking he should’ve known what I was talking about. I mean seriously, who’s not seen Star Wars. Who’s not seen Darth Vader talk to a holographic images of the Empire? (I did give him the benefit of the doubt and didn’t even let my thinking head near Episode 1 in which Darth Sidious is a hologram talking to nimrod and nincompoop, or in Episode 3 when the storm troopers are holding the little device and the hologram appears and they receive their orders to terminate the Jedi.)
“Well, at various instances within the Star Wars Trilogy you see Darth Vader talking to Empire Palpatine who isn’t present in real life he’s just present in holographic form. But you can see him, you can see the movements he’s making, you can hear him, if he were to turn around I’m pretty sure you’d be able to see his backside. That’s no different than the current technology given to us with voIP and video phones. As long as we’re in view of the camera, the person at the other end can see us, see whatever we’re doing, hear us speak. It’s the same thing just a different era in time.”
Everyone pretty much nodded and went on about their individual conversations leaving me with my group who were like, we get you Courtney, we really do, we’re just not sure they do. I don’t think my group got me either. But work with me here, and if you don’t get it go watch the Star Wars series and then come back to me.
This is the difference between me telling my minions to do something and them seeing me tell them to do something. Seeing a person tell you to do something has a little more impact than just hearing it. It’s like when I was a kid and mom would call to tell me to do something and I’d be like ‘yeah ok’ while thinking ‘whatever’ and rolling my eyes. This is the difference between me being able to communicate with my commanding officers (up to two at a time) and them knowing that I mean business.
Of course with a name like Tango it’s difficult for me to be completely serious with my cohorts. Good thing it’s not always business when I talk to them. And since they can see my expressions when we Tango they’ll know that I’m not talking business.
I already have everything I need to add more fun to my phone conversations. I have a regular phone and I have High-Speed Internet (DSL to be exact). It’s great when new toys are plug-n-play. I just have to connect it to a modem, my phone, and plug it into the wall for power and BAM! I’ve got the power!
It’s really nice that with the Tango Video Phone I get smooth full motion video on a 5″ TFT LCD Display at a rate of up to 30 frames per second. They get to see me perfectly because I can rotate the camera 180 degrees to make sure that they’re seeing what I want them to see. And everyone get’s to hear each other as we’re speaking because the Tango video phone has delay-free audio.
It’s portable so I can take it with me wherever I go: home, work, when I’m out playing, when I’m away on vacation. And portability makes new toys incredibly appealing to me.
Packet8 Internet Phone Service has got some great phone packages too. I personally would choose the Freedom Unlimited Residential Service Plan because it meets my needs (I don’t have people to call all over the world so I don’t need all the locations of some of the other plans) and it’s low priced.
So, I’ll take my futuristic thoughts, and the little Tango and pretend that it’s a holograph of whomever I’m talking to and we’ll enjoy the added vision to our phones and passion to our conversations.