Simple, Stand-Alone Internet Communication Devices?

ashitaka asks: "One month ago my father-in-law died leaving his wife to live alone for the first time in her life. She lives in a somewhat rural part of Japan, north of Tokyo, in an area with few neighbors. My wife is her only daughter and we live in Canada; her only son is an engineer for Fujitsu and spends many days on the road. We know she misses our kids and we try to get over to Japan as much as possible, however more than once every year or two is a stretch." What ashitaka is looking for is a simple device that can be used for video conferencing or instant messaging, that can be controlled with a remote and administered remotely. Assuming something like this doesn't exist, what would it take to bend a PC to this task?

"Videophone technologies up to now have required knowledge of computer operation and Instant Messaging software or having to go through the complexities of setting up the traditional video conference. Here we are talking about a 76-year old Japanese granny who has never (and probably never will) touch anything more complex than the phone or the TV remote.

I'm looking for a device which can be administered remotely, has 6-8 large 'quick-dial' buttons and an emergency button which will try to connect through a list of contacts if required. It shouldn't look like a computer but should support connecting to whatever IM clients would be appropriate. It would be nice if it could turn on the TV when a particular Universal remote button or buttons were pressed to save Obaachan an extra step but I'm not sure if current signaling standards for TVs would support that."

Poor old thing

[Edie O'Teditor]

Invite her to live with you, you rotten selfish bastard. Unless she smells of piss, in which case don't.

Dont have an answer but...

[MichaelSmith]

I am beginning to see why Japanese companies put so much effort into developing home robots.

It should be possible to throw something together out of fairly standard parts. A PC running Linux, a web cam, a TV tuner and an IR remote control. But I can't see anything off the shelf doing this.