Fake Backgrounds May Solve Lying Video Phone Caller Problem

Too Much Free Time

from the of-all-the-things-to-be-working-on... dept

Just over a month ago, we wrote about someone predicting that mobile phone video calling would never catch on, mainly because it would make it impossible to lie about your location. While we doubted the number of people who would make buying decisions based on their plans to lie, we also underestimated the fact that companies would already be working on a technology solution to this (potential) problem. Found over at PicturePhoning.com, comes the news of work being done to let video callers put up a fake background to fool those they’re talking to. Apparently, they believe they can set up the technology so the foreground will be live video, but the background will be a static image (which they warn users not to include any dated material – such as calendars – in). The next problem to tackle, according to the article: fixing the ambient noise problem that could also give away location (though, that hasn’t really harmed the adoption of regular mobile phone usage). Besides, if this fake background stuff really does become popular, we’ll hear of not-so-trusting husbands and wives demanding that their significant other move the phone around to show other parts of the “office” they’re supposedly in.