Quick Dips

Videophone Calling

Two science staff at Christchurch Polytechnic are helping convert a standard icon of science fiction into mundane fact.

The focus of their skills is New Zealand's first true videophones, units capable of transmitting and receiving high-resolution colour images like those on television. Now part of the Science and Technology Roadshow, they were designed and built over the last year by Karl Dodds and Paul Batten with financing from Telecom.

A camera in each unit is able to zero in on printed material and the like, ensuring a clear and accurate image at the other end of the line. The videophones are equipped with a card reader which takes cards similar to the standard phone card.

Unfortunately for most consumers, the videophones rely on fibre-optic cabling for their success and thus can't be part of existing phone services running on conventional lines. At the Polytechnic, however, fibre-optic cables now link many parts of the campus, providing the facility with the chance to check the project over the hundreds of hours of development.

Dodds acknowledges that commercial development costs would be astronomical, but is more optimistic about the possible use of videophones in distance education.

"They allow for true interaction between a tutor in one district and students many miles away", he says. "We'll just have to wait and see who can afford to encourage such developments."

John Brown