When I asked earlier about video...I was referring to whether or not Google Talk will support a videophone type system. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

 

I have it on reasonably good authority that Google Talk *should* support voice and video. . . as to whether there's a phone client (Google Talk --> land line phone) is unknown.

 

here's why google talk is no more exciting than the release of a new AOL AIM client, to anyone who knows what it is:
From http://www.livejournal.com/users/nugget/97081.html

When google gets behind a distributed and ubiquitous IM network that actually improves things, then it will be worthy of excitement. For now, it is just another IM network, and not even new, at that. Merely a crippled form of an existing client.

As far as videophone capability, given the bandwidth necessary for live video feeds of any quality, I doubt that that option is going to be very desirable via a chat client. Just get a decent photo of your correspondent, have a graphic artist friend make a looping gif animation with the mouth moving, and set that up in a browser window while you converse with your friend. Safe effect, same usefulness, and the advantage of not having to look like you're paying attention It's not like there aren't any other video-conferencing apps out there, they just have limitations based on bandwidth demand. What I really don't want to see is the explosion of people insisting they need videophones over the internet. Can you say resource hog? How about waste of bandwidth?

 

With the number of cable modems and high speed DSL connections out there, people have plenty of bandwith for a video chat application. In fact, doesn't Apple's iChat AV do that right now?

I think the limitation is the number of webcams out there to do this. More people probably have high speed internet than webcams.

 

Apple's iChat A/V does already do this, and it works very well, but only with AOL IM. I think the concern is one for businesses when 100 employees all decide to video chat and kill the available bandwidth.

Voice chat is better than typing, but you don't really need to see the person you are communicating with. The nice thing about video chat is being able to see someone like a wife, kid, or sig other while you are far away and won't be back for a while - think soldiers in Iraq who can video conf their families in the USA.