Picture Phone

When I was a kid, futuristic scenarios always included a picture-phone. Usually it looked pretty much like the land line we had always used, but it had a little box that showed a TV image of the person at the other end.

So now we have that. Thank you, Viggo. I have been waiting to have a picture phone for half a century. You gave us one by enabling a Skype account and calling Barbara to walk her through how to use our laptop (which has a built in web cam and microphone) to access the account. The only thing missing is the handset. It would be superfluous. We just needed the little box with the picture, a nice big color picture; the microphone and speaker are built in.

Depending on the vagaries of internet bandwidth, the picture can be quite slow to keep up with movement and talking. That will only get better over time as connection speeds continue to improve.

This morning I realized that with just a little work and expense (very little of each), this communication tool is available whenever we want to use it for building relationships with folks all over the world.

Thank you, Viggo, for making a childhood dream become a reality.