The bleeding edge of our increasing connected world is immersive visual collaboration. The telepresence technology that the Lab religiously covers represents a significant step towards bringing a more realistic conference environment to the business world. Yet as immersed as telepresence makes its participants feel, this environment still takes real, tangible people and connects them through technology. But what happens when we go beyond merely connecting people and instead create digital avatars of ourselves and meet together in a separate world? What if those avatars so closely resemble ourselves that they begin can begin to appear alongside us in reality without being detected? The short answer: the line between computers and reality evolves.
After the interest shown in our last future tech article about catoms and holodecks, I thought a survey of the most recent holographic developments might interest those of you who want to get an idea of where holographic presence technology is at in early 2007. In short, it's here. To my surprise, there are literally hundreds of holographic displays active right now with many other holographic presentations taking place in settings that might surprise you. Ad agencies now even integrate holographic displays as part of their bag of tricks they sell to their clients. Click through to learn a bit about the history of holography and see some of the most advanced displays to date.
Medical animation company Xvivo has released a journey through the life and times of the sometimes forgotten hero of our immune systems, the white blood cell. The video is called The Inner Life of the Cell and its journey takes you through the intimate details of what is under the hood of a white cell in a stunning virtual reality 3D immersion that has brought the group great praise. David Bolinsky, founder of Xvivo, indirectly describes the video as the logical extension of Frank Netter's famous medical illustration artworks. Check out the video after the break.
Well, maybe the holodeck is still a stretch, but it's getting much closer to reality. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created programmable matter that can take any form, including that of a human being. Known technically as dynamic physical renderings, these 3D holograms are composed of nano-sized reconfigurable claytronic atoms or catoms. Billions of catoms get conducted into a symphony of rhythmic motion, say that of a smile, by numbingly complex software.
SAN DIEGO, Feb. 20 -- Telanetix, Inc. (TNXI), a leading developer of Telepresence technology, announced today its plans to offer a new interoperable digital presence platform by the end of the first quarter of 2007. The new platform will give Telanetix users the option to participate in Telepresence meetings with standard H.263 and H.264 SIP enabled video conferencing systems currently being offered by video conferencing providers such as Polycom, Inc. and Tandberg.
The Human Productivity Lab is proud to announce the newest member of our telepresence information family, The Telepresence and Effective Visual Collaboration Industry Website Directory and Link Exchange. From telepresence solutions providers to telepresence consulting to industry conferences, our goal is to create the definitive resource for those researching telepresence and effective visual collaboration.
The mess of wires, those power strips overloaded with transformers and maddening gadget connectors half a nanometer from perfection may all soon be a thing of the past. A little company called Fulton Innovations has created 'eCoupled Technology,' a charging station that can interface with any electronic gadget and charge it without any wires.
OSLO and NEW YORK, February 1, 2007 - TANDBERG® (OSLO: TAA.OL), today announced unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2006.
Overview of 4Q06:
Cisco, Intel and Microsoft have joined forces to boost Lebanon's ravaged IT infrastructure and open up information technology in the Middle East region.
Cisco has announced it will present two Cisco Telepresence systems each, to the governments of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
The objective is to improve communications and collaboration within and among these countries by harnessing high quality, two-way video and audio capabilities and develop information communication technology (ICT) in the region.
Microtest has become the first Cisco Systems ATP partner in Russia and other CIS countries in sales of TelePresence teleconferencing solution.
Cisco Systems chose to partner with Microtest to sell Cisco TelePresence in Russia because Microtest had one of the best laboratories with Cisco equipment and multimedia equipment from other vendors.
Of all the changes wrought by digital technology, the most dramatic is a new idea of workplace. Thanks to such devices as wireless laptops, many nonmanual jobs can now be done almost anywhere - at home, in a car, or even on a park bench.
This new work freedom, properly handled, has the power to transform business, government, and home life. Telecommuters - those who work at home or on the road with no office at all - now number between 28 million and 32 million, according to some estimates, although an exact count is difficult. Whatever their numbers, they thrive professionally on text-messaging, videoconferencing, or any of the latest advances in electronic communications.
SAN DIEGO, Jan. 30, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) (PRIMEZONE) -- Rick Ono, Chief Operations Officer of Telanetix, Inc. (OTCBB:TNXI), a leading developer of telepresence technology, will be featured live on Market News First (www.mn1.com) for an exclusive interview with MN1's Steve Kanaval. The interview is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2007, at 4:00 p.m. CST.
SAN DIEGO, Jan. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Telanetix, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: TNXI) a leading developer of telepresence technology announced today that it has begun shipping its new Telepresence Screening Stations designed specifically for telepresence and workstation applications in the entertainment industry. The Screening Station allows directors, editors, producers and others in the feature film industry to simultaneously view high quality video content from remote locations while engaged in a telepresence conference using the same system and network.NEW YORK and OSLO, Norway, Jan. 30, 2007- TANDBERG® (OSLO: TAA.OL), a global leader in visual communication, today introduced a telepresence solution that creates a highly collaborative, in-person meeting experience. TANDBERG Experia makes meeting participants feel as though they're having a conversation with colleagues right across the table--while being miles or continents apart.
TANDBERG Experia addresses current obstacles to broad telepresence adoption while providing the most natural communication experience possible. The Experia advantage is in its ability to adapt to multiple environments and to interoperate with other standards-based video systems, providing the telepresence experience to a wider market. By placing Experia on an existing or managed network and making minor room adjustments, an executive's conference room can be transformed into a telepresence studio.
SAN JOSE, CALIF. - So far, when it comes to making money, the online video explosion is mostly about potential. Studios selling TV shows and movies for download, and Web sites like YouTube that link ads to user-generated content, stand to reap billions from the Internet's hottest trend.
But a select group of companies whose products exist largely outside the public view are already profiting handsomely. Led by industry powerhouse Cisco Systems Inc., the network equipment makers are seeing their gear snapped up by service providers who must upgrade their networks to accommodate surging Internet traffic and booming broadband demand.
"We think the tipping point is coming for video use in enterprises," says John Carlson, the chief marketing officer at Avistar, which sells videocomms systems aimed not at the meeting room but at individual PC users.
Avistar calls its business 'video collaboration', and Carlson claims it has already found favour with the likes of financial traders and analysts, who use it to share information in a richer way than just text or audio, as well as with organisations who need to communicate regularly with colleagues or outsourcing suppliers abroad, say.
Over the last couple of days, Cisco has been busy connecting the Middle East together through telepresence. In their their first announcement, Cisco announced that they were giving 2 of their top-of-the-line TelePresence 3000 rooms to each of the countries of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and the UAE. This announcement is part of a larger project between American private industry and the US government called The US-Lebanon Partnership Fund (administered by the NGO Global Impact), of which Cisco is a signatory and major sponsor.
TECHNOLOGY: Holographic representations are the next big thing in the virtual-reality world as three corporate giants prepare to launch their hi-tech conferencing solutions in India.
Do you recall the virtual telepresence of the Jedi knights at the council meetings in Star Wars: Episode-III? While computer scientists are still researching holographic representation, telecommunication technology now makes it possible for corporate executives to experience a virtual reality in their boardrooms.
In what might be the quintessential pet project of any university professor, Yoichiro Kawaguchi of the University of Tokyo has created the Gemotion, a display that mimics video by actually displaying undulations in the surface of the screen itself.
The display moves in rhythm with the images being displayed on it, creating what must be a very sensual experience as the professor himself is demonstrating. The screen itself operates by pushing air through an array of 72 hydraulic cylinders (see bottom half of image) that are attached equidistantly across a quite respectably sized screen of 45.8".
Professor Kawaguchi has this to say about his creation:
"If used with games, TV or cinema, the screen could give images an element of power never seen before. It could lead to completely new forms of media,"
Cisco has announced their new Digital Signage Technology that turns any digital display into a digital sign with a mix of hardware and software. Network appliances called Cisco Digital Media Players hook into existing digital displays, turning them into digital signs. The system is controlled through a typical desktop or laptop computer running Cisco's Digital Media Manager software.
In the Lab's trip to CES, we were dazzled by thousands of gadgets as you might expect. These gadgets ranged from USB pen drives all the way up to a teched-out Lamborghini. Each manufacturer took great strides to get our attention probably because we had to wear our press credentials like medals of honor. After cutting through the PR lights and glamor, I was struck by the CES dominance of what was once such a low-tech has-been in tech world: the television. Many consumer electronics behemoths like Samsung, Panasonic and Sony, who sell an endless lineup of gadgets, had their booths almost completely monopolized by the pesky old idiot tube. With such high profile manufacturers all but taking over the largest electronics show in the world with one device, questions get raised.
