Originally published December 27 2005
Skype Technologies offers video phone service
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Skype said it will give away the software that lets people make video calls for free. The caller and those they call must have a computer, a fast internet connection and a webcam.
James T. Kirk have used video phones for decades, calling people across the universe with unselfconscious ease.
But Americans have never embraced the technology which -- far from being science-fiction fantasy -- has been around since AT&T unveiled it at the 1964 World's Fair.
An assistant to Taiwan's External Trade Development Council displays a video phone from Mototech Technology.
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Internet communications company Skype Technologies SA yesterday joined a band of firms offering video phone service in the belief that people are finally ready to overcome the basic human fear of being seen on a bad hair day.
The company, bought by eBay Inc. in October, said it would give away software that will let people make video calls for free around the world as long as they -- and those they call -- have a computer, a fast Internet connection and a webcam.
For eBay, video may help auction sales by allowing sellers to communicate more directly with buyers and to better display their wares.
Companies including 8x8 Inc., Motorola Inc. and Viseon Inc. are taking a different path by rolling out video phones that work more like appliances -- with cameras, screens and microphones built into a unit that plugs into a broadband Internet connection.
The question -- and analysts say it is wide open -- is whether consumers bombarded with sound and images want to open their home to yet another screen and put themselves in front of a camera when they answer the phone.
During an interview, Delaney said he was working from his home office in Kent, England, and that he was not in his pajamas, "but I easily could be."
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