Evening star., 1952-08-27
Dr.. Osborne Envisions !
New Phone Fontosies
Amt Seen Nothing Yet soys
Retiring Chief Engineer
By Thomos R. Henry

By Thomos R. Henry
DR.. Harold S. Osborne, chief engineer
of the American Telephone and Tele-
graph Co., is on the point Of retirement
after AZ years of service during which he
has acquired knowledge of communi-
cations techniques hardly exceeded by
that of anybody else in the world.
"You amt seen nothing yet" is his
conclusion as he looked into the future
and INDUCED in fantasies of the eventu-
ally possible.
Let us say" he says, "that in the
ultimate whenever baby is born any
where in the world he is given at birth
number which will be his telephone
number throughout life. AS soon as he
can talk he is given watchlike device
with ten little buttons on one side and
a screen on the other. Thus equipped, at
any time when he wishes to talk with
any one in the world he will pull out
the device and punch on the keys the
telephone number Of his friend. Then,
turning the device over, he will hear the
voice Of his friend and see his face on
the screen, in color and in three dimen-
sions. If he does not see him and hear
him, he will know that his friend is
dead"
Sees Other Developments.
This, of course. will be terrible de-
velopment, and 1t is somewhat COM
forting when DR.. Osborne says: "Some
readers may feel that this is looking
ahead too far to see clearly" He sees
other developments in the nearer future.
which may have both advantages and
disadvantages. For example: ..
"Walkie-talkies practical for short
range have been developed and put to
a variety of uses. It is interesting to
observe that in 1910, for experimental
purposes, the Bell Laboratories put to-
gether telephone set with very short
range radio to eliminate the need for q
telephone cord. You can imagine in some
future time the lady Of the house taking
the telephone with her when she goes
to walk in the garden, and making and
receiving her telephone calls there.
For quite long time the telephone
companies have offered, in various parts
of the country. several forms of answer
ing service-means by which telephone
calls will be taken when the subscriber
is absent. It now appears practical to
offer that type Of service with automatic
devices. Development Of types of equip
ment suitable for this purpose is at an
early stage. The experiments which we
have been conducting, however, seem
to indicate that this should have field
of usefulness in the future.
Auxiliary Devices Expected.
Additional auxiliary devices to meet
special telephone requirements are to
be expected. One example IS the
distance talking set whereby one talks
and listens to box on his desk without
holding anything in his hand and with
out operating a switch to change from
talking to listening. To provide good
service with such q device involves
formidable technical difficulties, but it
is to be expected that these will be
overcome. Provision for conference calls
has been part Of telephone service for
yearS-that is, calls in which group Of
people in various parts Of the country
can be connected together so that all
hear what each one says. Great i'm
provementS can be made in this service.
"The inQuiring mind probably has
asked when we shall have individual
television with telephone calls. Bell
System people win recall the demonstra-
ton of this type of service. Is years ago
between New York and Washington.
Demonstration equipment associated
with appropriate circuits enabled those
conversing to see each other on televi-
sion screens while they talked. In spite
of tremendous advances in rs years,
there is no indication as yet when this
would be a sufficiently economical
service to appeal generally to telephone
users.
1.-THE great private-line systems some
equipped with automatic switching and
with means for the storage and re-
transmission of messages, which now
are in use by few large industries.
may be the harbinger Of special COM
municationS systems designed to meet
the specific requirements Of large enter
prises or groups Of users in the future"