Module 3 Rhyme of History

Rhyme of History A rhyme of history is a “new technology in a fresh emergence of the impact felt many years before from another technology” (Thornburg, 2009) . It is not the piece of technology, but the affect of the technology that is rekindled. One rhyme of history that brought was brought to my mind is the video phone or picturephone. The video phone is a telephone with a video to display that is on each end of the call. This form of technology originated in the late 1920’s. The first videophone was first and then it moved to videoconferencing, then webcams and now the most know video phone is Facetime on the iPhone. In the 1950’s and 1960’s there was a video phone available but it was very expensive and not many people could afford it. It would send still images every few seconds over the telephone lines. This was a very slow process and the delay of pictures made it so the voice did not match up with the images that were received. At & T Picturephones were available in the 1970’s but they were too expensive to purchase. They were $169 which is about $1,020 in current time’s prices. The owners were also charged $169 a month plus 25 cents per minute after the first 30 minutes. Prices were eventually dropped to $75 a month which is about $450 a month in current times. Very few people used this product. Webcams with using programs such as Skype is a much more recent program that many people use when wanting to see the person on the other end of a call. Skype is very inconvenient if one is not near a computer to speak. Facetime with the iphone has become very popular and the most used type of the videophone. IPhone users have the convenience of using the picture phone on the go at any place and time. One group of people that I did not think about that would have a great impact on having this device is a deaf or hard of hearing person. With using a video program like Facetime, they can use sign language to talk to people on the other end rather than waiting to see the person in person to speak to them. So“the affect or impact of a new development rekindles something from the distant past” which in this case is Facetime. References Thornburg, D. (2009). Six Forces that Drive Emerging Technologies. DVD. Laureate Education, Inc. Thornburg, D. (2009). Evolutionary Technologies. DVD. Laureate Education, Inc.