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"What television does is rent us friends and relatives who are quite satisfactory. This is quite something, to rent artificial friends and relatives right inside the house."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 |
| Phonotelephote | ||
| A means of transmitting and receiving both voice and picture for a personal conversation. |
This is an early reference to what people today call a videophone, but see other references below.
| This morning Mr. Fritz Napoleon Smith awakes in very bad humor. His wife left for France eight days ago; he feels disconsolate. Incredible though it seems, in the 10 years since their marriage, this is the first time Mrs. Edith Smith, the professional model, has been so long absent from home; two or three days usually suffice for her frequent trips to Europe. The first thing Mr. Smith does is activate his phonotelephote, the wires of which communicate with his Paris mansion. The telephote! Here is another great triumph of modern science. The transmission of speech is an old story; the transmission of images by means of sensitive mirrors connected by wires is a thing but of yesterday. A valuable invention indeed; Mr. Smith this morning is full of blessings for the inventor, when by its aid he is able distinctly to see his wife despite her great distance. |
| Technovelgy from In the Year 2889,
by Jules Verne. Published by Unknown in 1889 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the detailed article about the telephonoscope from Le Vingtième Siècle (The Twentieth Century) (1882) by Albert Robida, the telephot from Ralph 124c 41 + (1911) by Hugo Gernsback, the video communicator from The Machine Stops (1909) by E.M. Forster, the zoom call visaphone system from John Jones's Dollar (1915) by Harry Stephen Keeler, the videophone from The Golden Girl of Munan (1928) by Harl Vincent, the optophone from Too Many Boards! (1931) by Harl Vincent and the opti-phone from The Impossible World (1939) by Eando Binder.
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