The science-fiction dream of videoconferencing is finally grim, merciless reality, but tech companies have wanted to foist it on us for decades and this business-to-business marketing video for AT&T's early-1990s solution makes for amusing viewing.
They hired David Fincher to do TV ads for AT&T about the same time. They don't depict the VideoPhone itself, but the world AT&T hoped would come about because of how wonderful AT&T was. It's an interestingly conservative-yet-dreamy depiction of how we imagined the internet would change communications, as promoted by AT&T in the last hour of daylight before the internet and the web were things the general public knew about. It's quaint, yes, but its depiction of simple internet appliances—tablets, dashboard GPS screens, touchscreens on full-size TV sets—is smarter now than it seemed to be just a few years ago.
Helped get Fincher a real job, too!
