Well, it didn't happen QUITE the way they planned...

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Eh?

Meaning that all through the 70s (you're too young to remember :p), they talked about how video phones would be the Next Big Thing, and they put all this money into the technology. I remember trying one out at the Science & Industry museum here in Chicago when I was in grammar school. It seemed pretty cool, but it never caught on. All it took to get people excited about it was to invent the internet.

Oh yeah, they had one at the World's Fair when I was a kid (I forget which one - I was at the one in New York and the one in San Antonio).

Of course, they also said that nuclear power would be providing us with safe, clean, dirt-cheap energy by now. LIARS.

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Originally posted by Sarahfeena

Meaning that all through the 70s (you're too young to remember :p), they talked about how video phones would be the Next Big Thing, and they put all this money into the technology. I remember trying one out at the Science & Industry museum here in Chicago when I was in grammar school. It seemed pretty cool, but it never caught on. All it took to get people excited about it was to invent the internet.

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There's still the social issue that video calls are hard work, some people don't like others seeing them in their bedraggled home state, it's easier to multitask while talking on an audiophone, people are vain, harder to lie on the videophone etc. I agree with you though, it was always the next big thing on Tomorrow's World and Beyond 2000 growing up.