ng conveys audio and visual information, and adds to the richness of human interaction. It does not exactly duplicate in-person interaction, but it is much better than a simple phone call. Video communications can actually be more natural than in-person ones in that one can arrange a personal conference on the fly and from a comfortable setting. This results in a dynamic and fluid collaborative environment. Besides a generally favorable climate for all desktop applications, certain events boost Video Communications: The Whole Picture the popularity of personal conferencing specifically. These include: Maturity of personal conferencing standards Standards-compliant software and hardware Powerful compression algorithms Reduced cost of peripherals (e.g., cameras, speakers, microphones) IETF protocols and mechanisms for low-latency networking applications Collaboration between video communication suppliers and carriers. The Picturephone foreshadowed the need for audiovisually-enhanced collaborative tools, but the installed base of Picturephones was SO minute that none was of use. That could have been the situation personal conferencing faced were it not for interoperability standards. The ability to call or be called on-demand, without compatibility limitations has led to the acceptance of personal video communication. Picturephone's other great misfortune was reliance upon a network that did not yet exist. Thirty years later, immense advances in video compression permit the use of much slower networks for signal transport while network advancements are making networks exponentially faster. At the same time, the cost and availability of personal conferencing peripherals have plummeted. It all adds up to fertile ground for the growth of anywhere-to-anywhere personal video communication. PERSONAL CONFERENCING AND THE INTERNET Streaming time-sensitive media (audio and video) over the Internet sends shivers, good and bad, down the spines of those most interested in such applications. On the plus side, IP-based streaming 