An iPhone that video-conferences?
One of the hallmarks of technology is smaller devices with bigger capabilities. Now we have new rumors of just that in the form of rumors about video conferencing in a future iPhone.
It is not all that hard to remember portable tech devices that were not all that portable, like the Osborne computer or the brick “portable” telephone. Since those devices were the rage, a lot of technology has gotten a lot smaller and has gotten more powerful in the process. Not many years ago, had you said that you wanted a portable telephone that was also a camera, you would have risked capture by men in white suits.
Less than a year ago there was a stir at the World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco that was a bit of a stretch by the standards of even that recent day: video conferencing in an iPhone. That one involved rumors (and pictures) of an iPhone with a second camera, which was allegedly to be used for video-conferencing with the iPhone. That particular rumor came to naught.
Now similar rumors have surfaced, but may have more basis in fact. The very thought sets the mind working, of course. The iPhone would be a marvelous videoconferencing device, and would add another future-feature to this very small, powerful computer. The current rumor comes from a bit of information gleaned form an Apple patent application, which is becoming an important geek pastime.
This particular patent, number 7,479,949, contains the seeds of iPhone videoconferencing technology, according to Information Week. One reference says, “In some embodiments, the functions may include telephoning, video conferencing, e-mailing, instant messaging, blogging, digital photographing, digital videoing, Web browsing, digital music playing, and/or digital video playing. Instructions for performing these functions may be included in a computer-readable storage medium or other computer program product configured for execution by one or more processors.” Please note the words “video conferencing.”
Another section makes it even more clear by saying, “In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the back of the device, opposite the touch screen display on the front of the device, so that the touch screen display may be used as a viewfinder for either still and/or video image acquisition. In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the front of the device so that the user’s image may be obtained for videoconferencing while the user views the other video conference participants on the touch screen display.”
One cannot help but think of hosting an impromptu videoconference from the coffee shop or the pool with a handheld device having fewer cubic inches than our wallet. This may seem like an unimportant thing, but considering the technologies that it combines and the size of the hardware package, video conferencing on the iPhone would be a Big Deal indeed.
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