Videoconferencing has a colorful history that is worth examining. First introduced in the 1960s to enthusiastic crowds who saw technologies introduced on the Jetsons to be on the verge of becoming a reality, it disappeared about as quickly as it arrived. For all the pomp, circumstance, and media hype that accompanied its introduction, videoconferencing initially failed. In fact, AT&T spent more than a billion dollars on the concept before throwing in the towel.

Hugo Gernsback was born in 1884 in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. He emigrated to America in 1904 and became a U.S. citizen. His magazine, Amazing Stories, began publication in 1926 as the first periodical devoted to fiction of the future and was followed by Wonder Stories in 1929. The prestigious Hugo Award for science fiction excellence was named for him, as was a crater on the Moon.

Gernsback also published a magazine called Modern Electrics. In 1911, he published a serial story in Modern Electrics called Ralph 124C 411 in which he regaled readers with a technologically rich future, including the first reference to an application that would ultimately become videoconferencing. The story opens as one of the world s great scientists, Ralph, is talking with a friend from New York using a device called the telephot. Suddenly, the call is interrupted, and the telephot screen goes blank. When the image returns, his friend s face has been replaced with that of a beautiful woman clad in evening attire. She is clearly shocked by the face...