TELEVISION EMERGES FROM NURSERY STAGE

Taranaki Daily News, 3 November 1934, Page 15 (Supplement)

TELEVISION EMERGES FROM NURSERY STAGE

Scientific Marvel Which Will Be Valuable In Many Ways

'T'HERE comes a moment with every new invention when it is suddenly transformed from a wonderexciting novelty into an accepted part of the machinery of modern daily life. We have long since taken for granted the telephone and gramophone; even the miracle of wireless excites in us no astonishment. How long will it be before we add to the many accepted marvels of our age the televisor, the latest of them?

when the televisor is in general use it will be invoked for such occasions as birthdays and other domestic occasions. Take, again, the case of a call between two business men who are involved in a large deal where the facial reaction may be the index of the concealed thought. As each speaker will be able to see the other the element of the mask, inseparable from the telephone as we now know it, will completely disappear. . . The general adoption of television would make impossible the trick or

Television has been in the nursery stage for a considerable time. It proved an infant difficult to rear; but it may now be said to have entered upon childhood and, with accelerated growth, will soon attain to lusty youth (says the “News-Chron-icle”). The first image was transmitted by telephone wire in 1928, when a caller in London was heard and seem by a Glasgow receiver. That feat seemed to promise an. immediate forward stride in television; but it did not materialise. The experimenter returned to his laboratory: the public soon forgot. But, if the public heard no more, the technicians were still busy with their complex problem. Four years later, in Paris, a second. successful transmission was made, this time between the offices of “Le Matin” and the bureau of the Galeries Lafayette.

Both experiments, successful as they were, solved only one-half of the problem. An image of the caller was transmitted over the ordinary telephone line and clearly seen by the receiver, but there was no reciprocity. This problem of the twoway transmission of an image was achieved recently. What is the practical value of television? What concrete advantages are there in receiving, along with the voice, the image of the person at the other end of the line? They are chiefly psychological. To hear over the long-distance telephone the voice of a beloved person merely emphasises the fact of separation: voice plus image, on the other hand, evokes a temporary illusion of contact. It is probable that

telephonic personation that is now so prevalent. It would also prove, of great value in criminal detection work. For instance, in the case of a man held on suspicion at some remote station identity could be readily established, one way or the other, by transmitting the image of the suspect to headquarters. A further use to which the discovery will be put when the transmission of perfect images is possible is the identification .of documents and signatures. . When the commercial stage is reached there is little doubt that we shall use the televisor from special street booths and from post-office

boxes. But it is unlikely, say the experts, to. become a household amenity. , At the moment the several television companies in England are lying low, awaiting the report of the committee set up by the PostmasterGeneral. The terms of reference of that committee are brief: To consider the development of television and to advise the Postmaster-Gen-eral on the relative merits of the several systems and on conditions under which any public service of television should be provided. It is expected to report early in the New Year.