Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
n. A telephone capable of transmitting both audio and video signals in both directions.
Wikipedia
A videophone is a telephone with a video display, capable of simultaneous video and audio for communication between people in real-time. Videophone service provided the first form of videotelephony, later to be followed by videoconferencing, webcams, and finally high-definition telepresence.
At the dawn of its commercial deployment from the 1950s through the 1990s, videotelephony also included 'image phones' which would exchange still images between units every few seconds over conventional POTS-type telephone lines, essentially the same as slow scan TV systems. The development of advanced technology video codecs and high bandwidth Internet telecommunication services allowed videophones to provide high quality colour service between users almost anyplace in the world that the Internet is available, often at low or nominal costs.
In the present day videophones have become widely available at reasonable cost, although not widely used in everyday communications for a variety of reasons. However, they are particularly useful to the deaf and speech-impaired who can use them with sign language, and are becoming increasingly popular for educational instruction, telemedicine and to those with mobility issues.
Videophone, Video phone or Video Phone may refer to:
- Videophone, the telecommunication device that provides both live video and audio on a telephone call, letting each person see as well as talk to the other; or
- " Video Phone (song)", a song by American R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles from her third studio album, I Am… Sasha Fierce
Usage examples of "videophone".
A ramen bar Sarah and I had skulked in while the heat from the Gemini Biosys gig died down, eyes hooked to newsnet broadcasts and a corner videophone with a smashed screen that was supposed to ring, any time now.
Williams curtly, as she walked across the floor and keyed a top-secret security code into the touchpad of an inset videophone.
Internet phones, Internet videophones - they will be serious competitors and the phone companies are likely to react once they begin to feel the heat.
Videophones could access directory listings at the touch of a few keys, and for those who didn't have such things, it was cheaper, and more environmentally friendly, to have free directory assistance.
And then a cavern where several people sat and just watched a rotating display of exciting gadgets: self-winding vinyl shavers, laminated automatic mattress inflaters, combination spectrometer-tachometers, Old West-style laser guns, disposable artificial epoxy kidneys, solid-state microwave oscillators in decorator colors, electroluminescent diodes in personalized carrying cases, solar-powered nose-hair clippers, princess-style videophones, geodesic teakettles, injectionmolded garlic presses, manually operated cherrystoners, alligator-finished episcopes, magnetostriction ultrasonic generators on patio stands, self-turning kaleidoscopes, robot flatirons, vestpocket bronchoscopes, paisley-surfaced binnacles, miniaturized vacuum cleaners, musical abacuses.
The videophone buzzed once, long and insisting, and the screen suddenly flared to life, revealing Deputy Minister of Defense Khromeyev and Commander in Chief of Aerospace Forces Rhornerdunov seated at the main battle staff conference table at Supreme Headquarters in Moscow.