Patent 7983524 was granted and assigned to Sony on July, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An interactive communication apparatus is disclosed which has a video signal obtained by an image pickup device performing an image pickup activity and which has the obtained video signal sent to another apparatus through a communication section while causing a display section to display an image based on a video signal received from the other apparatus through the communication section. The apparatus includes: a pickup start and stop section; an indicator image storage section; a video switching section; and a control unit.