SEEING OVER THE 'PHONE

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 137, 11 June 1926, Page 12

SEEING OVER THE 'PHONE

THE TELEVISOR. It was confidently predicted 50 years ago that in a short time it would be possible to see one's friends over the telephone line. That prediction has only now come about. A few weeks ago in London, a "Daily L News" woman representative, sitting in a darkened room, was able to recognise, i in a lens in front of her, the face of a' colleague who sat smoking a cigarette in a room upstairs. This was part of a demonstration ! given by Mr. J. L. Baird of the possibilities of his "Televisor." The moving head and shoulders of the man at the transmitter end appeared in a succession of bars of light, passing across the receiving lens. The result was a somewhat indistinct and flickering likeness. There will be improvement as the bars pass more speedily. This depends on the speeding up of a rotating series of lenses reflecting the subject, and is a comparatively simple matter. The demonstration was made with wires in use, but can be carried out . equally well by wireless. ! Interference, which in the wireless , reception of sounds is often like the twittering of birds, takes the form in this case of swirling "snowfiakes." i Mr. Baird is now setting up a larger . apparatus, and is installing better i lenses, and promises within a short time to transmit a whole scene from i his studio, first to the room below, ' where it will be projected on to a • screen, and, in time, inevitably to pic- • ture houses and into homes at an 3' dis- . tance equipped with the proper receiving sets.