SMRTR TechApr 7, 2026Nautilus

How Video Calling Worked Almost 100 Years Ago

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The first video call occurred in 1927 between Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover in Washington, D.C. and AT&T officials in New York using AT&T's room-sized "ikonophone" system, which transmitted choppy black-and-white images at 18 frames per second. Though AT&T introduced video phone booths in 1964 and videoconferencing emerged in the 1970s, high costs prevented widespread adoption until advances in computing, video compression, and the internet made video calling accessible in the early 2000s.

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