[http://youtu.be/WzdCKBZP4Jo] (YouTube link)I well remember the marketing for Ma Bell’s Picture Phone. It was a remarkable piece of technology, to talk to someone and see them as if they were in the room! Except th...

Long-distance communication at a relatively high speed (compared to carrying messages) came about with the invention of the optical telegraph in France, fifty years before the electrical telegraph. The optical telegraph...