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Cam calls, the killer app

Quote:

Look, to start with, the term killer app for the Nokia Internet Tablet is not going to be "video calling."

"Video calling" is so last century. What we'll call it when we can see the person we're messaging is anybody's guess. Maybe "cam calls." Or VidIP (video over IP). Or VM (visual messaging).

"Video calling" is what the telecoms will charge hundreds of dollars for. It's not what NIT users will be doing. With a large universe of Skype users, NITs make dandy phones. But you know what? I've got phones up the, um, wazoo.

I haven't had a tremendous experience with Nokia's very-beta internet calling, but what I've had makes me think that webcam plus VoIP is less like a phone call and more like IMing without typing.

When my kids tried out the N800 look-at-me calling, they didn't act like it was a phone. They stayed connected for forty minutes or longer and treated the NITs like video walkie-talkies, roaming around the yard (and neighbors' yards) and even playing "you can see what I'm looking at" hide-and-seek.

I tried but wasn't able to connect when an N800 was temporarily at grandma's. Connecting to her, I expect, would have been more like a phone call with faces.

But I think the IM generation will make this walkaround webcam into just a really practical -- no texting charges! no keying! -- form of visual messaging, with bursts of messaging interspersed with periods of being connected but not communicating.

Thoughtfix advised me this week that webcams are becoming standard issue in the second-generation UMPC tablets, which means Skype cam calling will work between the Windows and Linux tablet communities.

And you put mobility + visuals + internet-pricing together and you have a killer app for the, um, VM generation.

Read the full article.

Re: Cam calls, the killer app

It is hard to designate anything a "killer app" on a device platform that hasn't yet acquired "must have" acceptance by the masses.

To that end web/cam apps will help achieve that status for some with the N800. For others it may simple be an in car navigator that also does other things well, and to others still it may be Linux served home networks that can easily be controlled by a small and extremely portable device.

As stated, web/cam apps will soon be available on many new tablet like devices. It is not a stretch of the imagination to believe some of these may have the hardware to do VidIP (video over IP) or VM (visual messaging) better than the N800 can ever hope to do.

What the N800 has over other platform/OS combinations is the ability to do these things concurrently with other operations and to be easily tailored by individual users for security, convenience or both.

"See what I see" technology as well as internal security are perhaps 2 of the biggest, perceived needs of the business community. Motorola has recently invested a lot of dollars in "See what I see" cell phone technology as well as shifting its "Smart Phone" efforts away from WinMo to JAVA on Linux.

The N800 platform/OS lends itself very well to businesses for developing in house networked apps and it could conceivably be a Blackberry killer in that role...

In what ever role the N800 eventually plays, it just needs a little push from Nokia.

Re: Cam calls, the killer app

"Thoughtfix advised me this week that webcams are becoming standard issue in the second-generation UMPC tablets, which means Skype cam calling will work between the Windows and Linux tablet communities."

Ok, this post come in the perfect moment in which I wanted to post a question to the whole forum.

How can we hope Skype on N800 will support the video call if neither Skyper for PPC nor for Linux are supporting it? After all, I guess the N800 version will be based on the Linux one, which currently is far less developed than the Windows one.

I don't know about you, but me, I think we won't have any video call support.

We just need to wait a couple of days ;)

Re: Cam calls, the killer app

I'm presonally hoping nokia pulled some strings to get a full featured skype client for the n800. They managed to get rhapsody to allow them to use the protocol when rhapsody doesnt have any linux clients. I think we're pretty much covered for voip already seeing as how I use my N800 as a sip phone. I've got my fingers crossed hoping the swung something to get us a decent skype client, otherwise I don't really see the point of adding it.