DVE's co-founder and CEO, Steve McNelley at Telepresence World

2007.06.06 by John Serrao

Steve McNelley, PhD, Co-Founder, DVE on stage at Telepresence World

The following article was written by Ed Kohler, a member of the Lab's TW2007 Coverage Partner, Technology Evangelist.

DVE has been getting a lot of attention at Telepresence World with the launch of their new tele-immersion system. However, when DVE's co-founder and CEO, Steve McNelley, PhD took the stage to present his thoughts on the telepresence industry, he decided to take a more high level approach than focusing on specific products. His presentation focused on what telepresence is with an anticipated steer toward what makes DVE's solutions unique.

McNelley defines telepresence as "eye contact" and has a beef with competitors who use terms like, "approximating eye contact" to market their telepresence solutions. Anything short of eye contact is not a true telepresence user experience as he defines the term.

He explained that many factors have to come together to create a telepresence experience, including appropriate conversational distances, true eye contact, and life size images of meeting guests.

Cameras places above monitors will project a down-looking image to attendees on the other end of the line. Placing the camera in front of the screen is intrusive. Putting it in the screen can work, but is also intrusive. Placing the camera behind the virtual guests who are projected on a transparent screen allows for capturing participants looking directly into guest's eyes on the other end of the connection.

The Telepresence Workplace: The Vision

McNelley laid out his vision for where he's like to see this industry move:

• Put personal telepresence systems in everyone worker's corporate office across from their desk. This would provide immediate personal access for ad hoc meetings without the pain of scheduling access to a telepresence room. This brings us closer to a telepresence phone.
• Roll out systems in homes to create face to face, eye to eye telecommuting, removing the disconnectedness telecommuters often suffer from. McNelley suggests that this has the potential for significant financial savings and improvement of quality of life.
• Use products like the Codian's MCUs for multiple user telepresence calls on personal telepresence units using voice-activated switching situation.

McNelley didn't get into describing DVE's tele-immersion system where they've created a large conference room with strikingly realistic projections of meeting participants across the boardroom table. Technology Evangelist, in partnership with the Human Productivity Lab is conducting an interview with DVE as I write this, so look for that here and on HumanProductivityLab.com in the near future. The photo below from DVE shows an example of this technology, but doesn't do justice to how life-like this is when experience in person or on video.