This Slashdot article quickly gets into a down in the dirt technical discussion, but the question about full time video to elderly parents is an indication of what is coming. If you browse through the comments, what you quickly realize is that people are already doing this routinely. What is missing is high quality "like you are there" connectivity. Some companies like Accenture are already experimenting with full time HD video links for exactly this application, and telehealth and telemedicine uses of the same equipment are not far behind. We just need networks capable of providing the bandwidth.