Inventors of the Visual Telecommunication Systems

The invention and development of the telephone enabled the simplest and most direct form of human communication to be achieved, that is, by voice and ear, but left unused another human sense organ, namely the eye. There was clearly scope for a variety of modes of visual communication, ranging from the transmission of hand- or typewritten documents, sketches, and photographs (facsimile), to live video conferencing between pairs or groups of people (teleconferencing), and teletext (the presentation of alphanumeric and other information on television receivers or video display units).