Editorial: June 20, 1996
I cannot believe that the readers of this magazine have not yet put the "Grandma Phone" on the market. The technology is in place. The market is huge. And, the product niche goes unfilled.
The Grandma Phone is a simple-to-use, plug-and-play video phone that allows geographically distant families, including grandmas, to keep in touch. I know I'm being politically incorrect in calling this product a "Grandma Phone," but my mother's needs and wants define this thing, and she's definitely a grandma. She wants to see her granddaughter, and, in that respect, she is like millions of other grandparents in the world. These people don't want to reach the next level of "Doom," they won't surf the Internet, and they have no desire to order pizza or Ginsu knives by fax.
I was one of those lucky people who used AT&T's video phone at the 1964 World's Fair in New York. Although the person I spoke to and saw on a tiny black-and-white screen was just inches away in the next booth, the obvious promise of this communication device was huge. It's now more than 30 years later, and, although we have videoconferencing for business, we don't have consumer-level products. Yet, consumer purchasing power is currently riding high as the major force driving the electronics industry.
My market research, albeit unscientific, indicates that there's a huge pent-up consumer demand for this product. In the hopes of moving development along—kicking it, actually—I'm going to give you my definition of the product. Feel free to design and build one of these puppies, put it on the market, and rake in the moola.
First, Grandma doesn't want to know about CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, WIN.INI, SYSTEM.INI, or the Windows Registry. The Grandma Phone must be as simple to use as a regular telephone. In fact, it must use the same telephone line and plug into the same RJ-11 phone jack as a regular telephone. One phone line is all you get.
Grandma doesn't need 30 or even 15 frames/sec. She'd be delighted with one or two frames/sec, because many grandmas are currently living with one or two frames/year delivered by mail as annual birthday and Christmas photos. AT&T's 30-year-old black-and-white image will do, too. However, some grandmas like color, so an optional color version would be a good idea. Naturally, Grandma shouldn't have to tell the phone whether it's calling a regular phone, a black-and-white Grandma Phone, or a color job. The handshake protocol between the phones should handle all of that invisibly. In fact, Grandma doesn't want to tell this phone anything, except what number to dial. The product needs a lot of built-in smarts.
All of the basic technologies you need to design this phone are already in place: high-speed V.34 modems, low-cost electronic imaging sensors, inexpensive monochrome LCDs, compression and video standards, fast and low-power processor cores, and readily available ASICs. You should be able to put a low-end box on the market for approximately $500 per unit, with a reasonable margin for the distribution channel.
So, do it already! My mother is waiting.
Steven H. Leibson
Editor in Chief