Net phone services enabling video calls

MAYBE IT’S TIME. After false starts ever since its 1964 introduction to the public at the New York World’s Fair, maybe video telephone service is finally poised to take off.

A third of U.S. homes today have broadband connections, which allow fast transmission of video. That eliminates the delays and jerky motions that turned off users of video telephony in the past. Cameras are better. And personal computers, the device most video telephony services are hooked to these days, are arguably more powerful than telephones.

Most importantly, with the Internet now a vehicle for making telephone calls for free or low cost through VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) connections, maybe it’s only a matter of pushing the envelope to get people to make video calls over the Internet.

That is the bet of SightSpeed Inc. of Berkeley, which has been developing its technology for five years while slowly signing up customers. SightSpeed offers software that lets users make video calls or send video e-mail over the Internet from their PC or Mac. Its software is available as a free download from the Web, or packaged with WebCam video cameras made by Creative Labs Inc. and packaged with PCs powered by Intel Corp.’s Centrino chipset for and Pentium 4 in desktops.

By Barbara Grady, BUSINESS WRITER

Full Story: http://www.insidebayarea.com/businessnews/ci_3168327