The telephone is one of the most successful and popular inventions of the m
odern world. Television is also enormously popular and successful. Yet vide
otelephony remains a. relatively unpopular technology, despite extensive st
udy and major advances. This is the first in a! series of five articles abo
ut the future role of video pictures in commun ica tio ns, exploring commer
cial, engineering, human, artistic and cultural factors.