The Video Chat That Existed In The 1870s | How Sci-fi Inspired Science

You hear your phone. You look down, and what do you see? Incoming video call. After you hit the client, think about how commonplace video chats have become. For a long time, the idea of seeing someone from across the world was only in science fiction. So, how did it go from looking like this to this? Let's find out how the science fiction inspired science reality.

As communication devices have dramatically changed, sci-fi has been a step ahead, imagining new devices and their effects on society, for better and for worse.

Mobile phones and tablets appeared in sci-fi years before we had them in real life. What we've wanted all along is face-to-face contact through a device—telephone, TV—with callers able to see as well as hear.

At least since the invention of the telephone, illustrators and authors envisioned combining pictures with sound. Like French author and illustrator George Du Maurier's telephone ESCO, which looks like a combination video phone and flat-screen TV. The videophone appeared in the first episode of The Jetsons in 1962 when Jane Jetson had a chat with her mother. Various versions of video chatting appeared in sci-fi TV and movies during the 20th century.

Meanwhile, AT&T's Bell Labs was developing a real-life picture phone. In April 1964, the picture phone debuted for public demonstration at the World's Fair in New York. Two months later, service began with booths in Chicago, New York, and Washington D.C. First Lady of the US, Lady Bird Johnson, made an early picture phone call to Dr. Elizabeth Wood of Bell Labs.

The system was impractical for home use, involving expensive equipment and a hefty fee per minute. Video chatting remained elusive for three more decades until we had the internet, computers with cameras, and the software to make it work.

Our grandmothers' Skype software was introduced in 2003, and Apple's FaceTime followed in 2010. We finally achieved the dream of the videophone. Now call your grandma; she'd love to see you!