British Telecom's world-beating multimedia payphone, launched in London last week, looks suspiciously pregnant. Some flat-screen public information kiosks are only a few inches thick, so why does the Multiphone bulge in the middle?
According to BT's payphone team, the hard part of the design wasn't producing a phone with high-speed internet access. That's easy for a phone company which can run ISDN-2 lines to the kiosk to provide an "instant on" capability. The hard part - and this accounts for the shape - was including a reliable printer and a large roll of paper.
BT expects people to use the Multiphone in stations - the first was installed in Waterloo - and other areas to look up local hotels and restaurants, and display maps. Then they will want to print them out, not spend ages writing things down.
The Multiphone will have to keep printing things out without overheating and without the paper jamming, or running out constantly.
It must also withstand a certain amount of physical abuse, but that, BT says, is a familiar problem. At the launch attended by model Caprice (shown left), and MP Ken Livingstone, BT's payphone manager invited Our Ken to test the toughness of the screen. He bashed it vigorously with the telephone handset - "Reliving his youth," quipped the man from BT - and neither broke.
With the Multiphone, for 10p a minute you can talk and surf the net at the same time. For internet access, it runs the QNX 4 real-time operating system recently jilted by Amiga (What's New, July 15) with the Voyager browser. It doesn't support Java, Shockwave and other non-standard feature. However, BT says the Multiphone software can be updated by downloading code from a central server, and the software may change during the roll-out of about a thousand Multiphone kiosks across the UK between September and March.
More worryingly for regular computer users, the on-screen keyboard has no Copy or Control keys. That means you can't simply grab text and paste it into a search box or email message, but must "type" everything in. (Although BT does operate some payphones with proper keyboards that slide out on a tray, it decided not to incorporate these in the Multiphone.)
BT sees the Multiphone as a development with potential. It hopes the system will be adopted in other parts of Europe, and is already planning a joint venture with Telfort, its partner in the Netherlands.
It is also planning a version with a built-in video camera, that people will be able to use for video-conferencing. Although there won't be much business in phone-to-home video in the short term, there is a potential market for helpline services and other call-centre operations.
