How is this different from Apple's iChat AV other than screne size? From Texas I video chat with my parents in Hawaii about once a week. It's basically replaced our long distance phone service for communicating with family.

To me, this is already a killer app that has been on the market for years. I though businesses would have jumped on it by now. But no one else seems to have noticed. Again, how is Telepresence different?

Excellent piece and very relevant.
Intersting for me in that I was directly involved in the deployment of one of the first nationwide Video Conference Network from ISACOMM (some 20 odd years ago) which turned into Sprints Meeting Channel Network. It used $700K plus state of the art Conference rooms layed out exactly as you describe and Satellite transmission at $700/hour for its use-very high at that time.
FTTPremise networks will certainly open this type service to both small businesses as well as residential (SOHO) type markets.
I can also imagine Laptop users (with their little video cameras) holding impromtu Video Conf while on a Wireless Mesh or Hot SPot.

Jim

Doesn't Apple have a patent on a video screen that is also a camera? By that I mean the CCD pixel elements of the camera are interspersed with the LCD pixels of the display. Presumably some software wizardry would be needed to turn that into a normal looking image, but I image that would be relatively easy.

Technology like that would eliminate any problems with providing eye contact.

While apple has iChat, being able to use it like an AppleTV would be a nice first step.

Heck, I'd like to see the appleTV hackers out there figure out how to hook up a usb camera w/mic to that unused usb port and software so I can give one to grandma. My 3 yr old can operate the apple tv. Why couldn't she video call grandma?

While HD is nice, until we have more bandwidth here in the US, I'd settle for a lower-def counterpart that doesn't require sitting down in front of the computer.

Just thinking out loud.

I already have a 55-inch screen and it cost me about $200. Just mount as many old 19-in CRTs as you can find in the attic one next to another. Buy a second graphics card (perfectly good ones cost less than $100). Fiddle with the CRTs until they line up evenly. (Harder than you might expect.) Spend 2 minutes configuring Windows. Done. I have no idea why everyone doesn't do it.

How much different is this from the "distance learning" equipment probably gathering dust in a school near you? The stuff I saw 10 years ago also used DS3s, and huge (for the time) TVs, CRTs of course.

K.D.

When I interviewed at Dreamworks (in Glendale) a few years ago, part of the interview was in the fishbowl with engineers from PDI. It was really cool and MUCH better than the usual videoconferencing.

However, it's not a killer app for consumers.

Dude, you're starting to sound like Scoble or Rubel with wild prognostications about the success of whatever flash technology rolled out in front of you last. I'd suggest that business meeting interaction needs exist at two extremes: face time required, or face time not required.

If its required, its going to be physical meetings. If its not, email, phone etc. will suffice.

The point is that there isn't a continuum here (that I've observed) in which video conferencing has a spot. "Marginal convenience" is the key here: is much more marginally convenient to pick up the phone and call the "down the hall" person (or email the down-the-hall people) than it is to book and set up the room at both ends, coordinate across timezones, etc.

In a nutshell: There's no use case around expensive, high-overhead technologies for 10 minute "down the hall" meetings.

10 years from now, the video conferencing niche may have expanded slightly, but the fundamental nature of human communication will always keep it on the sidelines IMHO.

Didn't you just complain about American broadband not getting anywhere because American companies are all screwed up in a previous column?
Then you refer to Moore's law and apply it to bandwidth forgetting your earlier complaints about the lack of future in American broadband.

Inconsistent . . .

>Doesn't Apple have a patent on a video screen
that is also a camera?
>By that I mean the CCD pixel elements of the camera are interspersed with the LCD pixels of the display.

I have not heard of that, but a while back there was news about tiny CCD pinhole cameras. So you could achieve the same effect by mounting a number of those behind the screen, with the pinholes between the pixel elements. The more cameras you use the higher the resolution and the light gathering capability. Added bonus: the parallax information from the multiple cameras can be used for building a 3D image if the other party wants to use some kind of stereo display.

I bought the new iMac last month and video iCHAT is the killer app. I now video chat weekly with my friends in other parts of the country with two clicks of the mouse, nothing but an AIM account required. Set-up was less then two minutes and connection even with a three-way had no noticeable lag. Have telepresence today with standard broadband and a 20 inch screen. If consumers knew how easy it is, they would be all over it.

When the telephone was invented, many thought the city would become irrelevant. Why pay high rents when you can use the telephonic device to call your clients from a cabin in the woods? We heard the same argument with telecommuting. It's pretty hard to clink glasses in a telepresence room. Perhaps if businesses start to feel guilty about carbon footprints from all those flights, they might look at this as a reasonable alternative. But I doubt it.

Does anyone remember a company called Teleportec? In the late '90s they were supposed to revolutionize teleconferencing with a projection system that provided a true, 3D presence. Didn't happen for various reasons. The technology is still cool though:

http://www.teleportec.com/

Wow, I just was thinking of system that would allow me to visit the grandkids 600 miles away. More on that in a moment...

As a former Apple employee, I remember the havoc 9/11 caused with our meetings and work that required travel. We initially attempted to use various video conference rooms to conduct meetings across the country. Worked well but the scheduling was atrocious. Not enough rooms to accommodate the needs, and the costs were very high to build out more.

iChat began to play a greater role in my day to day routine and I often used it to meet with my team of telecommuters based around the country. Monthly and Quarterly closings were interesting.

Back to the family visits...
I frequently iChat with them, and have also noticed that the "look 'em in the eye" part of the experience is less than any of us want.

How about three isights arranged around the screen instead of just one at the top... with Apple's software wizards, I'm sure they could interpolate the three streams into one "3-D" like composite that wouldn't even require the red-green cellophane glasses to watch.

Hmmm, this could conjure up some sort of multi-projector like hologram... wait a minute, I think I'm getting ahead of what I would settle for.

How about setting up a 40" screen (a new iMac?) in both locations, like in a reading room in each house, and use the "iChat on steroids" approach to allow us to schedule a visit. We could all just sit on our comfortable chairs and visit for a while. Almost like being next door.

With the convergence of increased processing power, compression, and increasing bandwidth, I would bet this could easily be done in the next 18 months.

But you are right Bob, it will take Jobs and Apple to open the door.

1.)
I already have a 55-inch screen and it cost me about $200. Just mount as many old 19-in CRTs as you can find in the attic one next to another. Buy a second graphics card (perfectly good ones cost less than $100). Fiddle with the CRTs until they line up evenly. (Harder than you might expect.) Spend 2 minutes configuring Windows. Done. I have no idea why everyone doesn't do it.
AlanK | Aug 31, 2007 | 2:36PM

You make it sound easy, AlanK, but it ain't. Especially the Windows part (two minutes? Please.... try Fedora, OpenSuSE or Ubuntu Linux, you'll spend as much time but at least you'll know exactly what you're doing, why it did or didn't fail, and true satisfaction, not relief, when it works, and support from the community to help improve it and make it work better).

Put your money where the snarky mouth is and put up a howto web page elegantly demonstrating what you have described. Then post back here with a link. Perhaps if you truly lead, the rest may truly follow.

2.)

While I do not doubt Apple's intended foray in its ever expanding electronics entertainment empire, as described in your article, RXC, I think this is only one of many intended killer apps that is being honed in their labs. As fun and exciting as this particular app sounds, it doesn't ring true as a feature the affluent common man is gonna want and cause people to line up around the block. In the next few years as its shackles are unleashed and features expanded, the iPhone will be the killer device with killer OS and the killer apps. Of course, hackers may eventually be gravitated away from Windows (much to Microsoft's relief?) and start tapping away at whatever weaknesses are in OS X to use the iPhone's popularity base in whatever coordinated attacks the villainous coders have in mind. Ten million users is the target number? - should be plenty for a sneak attack. Apple's idea of security is to stand on a box and say smugly, "We're not Windows!". That's not going to fly when there is a killer piece of code embedded in your device that was planted unknowingly by some malfeasant code gang that turns your current couldn't-live-without-it-joy!-joy! appliance into a weapon of informational destruction .

Teleprecence is about so much more than saving a few flights. Remember Big Brother's teleprecence in Winston's apartment? This technology will fundamentally change our society!

Don't see this as the next killer app. The equipment and bandwidth costs are too high. As mentioned before, the scuttlebutt is that there is no investment in large scale broadband necessary to make this work. Besides the monopolistic service providers won't drop the price enough to make this cost feasible for a long time to come. Even with the recent price drops in HD monitors, penetration can't be in more than 10% of households today. Voice and email are "good enough" for most business today and face-to face appears to be declining. Far flung meetings suffer from time zone differences and many already feel that they're telcon'ed to death as it is.

As a current shareholder, I hope this isn't where apple is putting their R&D budget today. Apple has ignored big business as a primary customer in favor of small businesses and home users of late, and that strategy has panned out pretty well for them. To bet the farm on such an initiative would be pure folly. Instead Apple needs to continue to focus on its (already very rapidly expanding) core and firm up the link from the ether to the living room (and the personal media device) for entertainment.

In addition to being underwhelmed with the technology I think you're grossly overestimating the appeal of the technology.

I've got a million and one electronic goodies laying all over my place, and as much as I like new tech I can't muster up much excitement over this technology. Certainly not enough to spend any money it.

I'm not even terribly sure this really gives consumers enough more than they currently have with video chat to warrant the average joe spending any much less extra money on it.

The obvious killer app for telepresence: porn.

Remember "Logan's Run"? The "Dial a Sex Partner" screen?

Instead of watching a porn star strip and masturbate - or even screw with X number of other people - on a tiny LCD screen, watch it lifesize! Real sound!

And it's INTERACTIVE! They do what you want! They talk to you! And with the right remote-controlled "PC peripherals", they can even DO YOU!

It's like being there! Want to attend an orgy, but too ugly to be able to? Here's your solution!

First company to do this with equipment that costs under $3 -6,000 will make gazillions of dollars!

I dunno, Bob, I hear what you're saying but people have been saying for decades that video-conferencing (telepresence if you prefer) will catch on and the fact that it hasn't has less to do with the poor resolution currently available and more to do with the fact that people just don't like it.

I'm an expat, I've been videoconferencing with distant family for as long as it has been practical, and it's interesting to note that we rarely bother, even though it's cheaper to video iChat than to pick up the phone. Somehow a phone is more natural.

Also, I've been attending videoconference meetings at work for a number of years. True I have not seen this latest tech from HP in action, but I can absolutely and categorically say that the savings provided by videoconferencing are outweighed by the hidden costs in keeping people physically apart. We all know that the real work in meetings is done in the margins, over coffee, over dinner, in the hotel bar. People need to be brought together.

It would be great for the environment if people stopped flying across the world for work meetings, but despite your column I remain a sceptic.

Until we have unthrottled fibrer-to-the-home instead of the third world data rates most people are allowed by various Telescom monopolists, these things will always be ignorable novelties. I'm sick of squinting at YouTube-esqe quality video already and that's FREE, so why would I waste money paying to squint at this low-res... buffering...buffering...buffering...

Until we have unthrottled fibrer-to-the-home instead of the third world data rates most people are allowed by various Telescom monopolists, these things will always be ignorable novelties. I'm sick of squinting at YouTube-esqe quality video already and that's FREE, so why would I waste money paying to squint at this low-res... buffering...buffering...buffering...

I agree with Steven Hack that seeing sexy naked people will be important to the adoption of this technology, but not exactly the way he sees it. VHS, the internet and DVD were all helped by people's desire for porn but all those things had other, more socially acceptable uses that allowed people to buy them without being labeled perverts. If this tech takes off porn will be there in the early stages but only a small number of people would pay 3,000-6,000 for set up and subscriptions and peripherals that "do you." Interactive porn will certainly help adoption but the floodgates will have to be opened by prices much cheaper than 3 grand and uses that don't make your neighbors look at your living room funny.

I hear this fiber to the home stuff bantered around like people think it is easy to run fiber down your street, across your lawn, under your pool through your flower bed and into your home. This is real work that requires real labour and a lot of cost and has nothing to do with a monopoly telco. It's all net new work so any new carrier that can make a business case is more than encouraged to take on the task. It's not like the telco can attach a fiber cable to your existing copper and ask you to pull from your end. We point to Asian countries like Korea as examples of progress but the truth is most people there live in apartments where it is easy to deploy fiber to the suite.

My 2 cents and sorry if it's off topic.

Polycom, Tandberg and others all offer HD (720p) videoconferencing for less than 1/5th the startup cost of the Halo system. And they can be run at their full HD resolution over a 1.5Mbit T1 or SDSL connection. Meaning your mrc is about 1/5th to 1/10th as well.

The real key to all of this working over the Internet is of course not getting the bits delayed significantly anywhere along the path. Jitter is the death knell of Video over IP. Spikes in the intra-packet delay times cause unnatural pauses and even outright freezes in the action.
This really requires a non-net-neutral Internet, but then who will ensure your video bits arrive in a regular fashion vs. those of the video service your ISP is promoting?

I have 1 or 2 telephone conference call meetings per day where I work. About half of those meetings use NetMeeting to share documents. We have had video-conferencing available for years - but, it is almost never used. Based on my experience, these are the reasons video-conferencing is almost never used where I work:

1. Too few video-conferencing rooms. The ratio of teleconferencing rooms to video-conferencing rooms is something like 200 to 1.

2. The video-conferencing rooms are too far away. The tele-conferencing rooms are just around the corner.

3. The video-conferencing equipment is difficult to operate. If my company used NetMeeting video-conferencing it would be used more frequently. But, we use a system that has a remote control with about 75 buttons on it with a non-intuitive interface. And the microphones are weird and don't work as easily as the teleconference telephones. We can't use NetMeeting anyway - it doesn't support HDTV quality.

4. The vido-conference audio is not as good as the telephone audio. Granted, the latest HDTV video-conferencing system we have has very good audio, but the Polycom telephone audio is noticebly better. AT&T's switched network does better audio than any networked/routed audio.

5. Sometimes it is nice to mute the telephone without the other location knowing what you are doing and have side conversations.

6. Video-conferencing is distracting. It's hard to stop looking at yourself. Perhaps if we used it more or just didn't display the local video
this would be less of a problem.

7. Video-conferencing cost more than tele-conferencing.

8. Video-conferencing (even the new HDTV version) will never replace a real face-to-face meetings.

I could go on... but, I have to go to a meeting -a teleconference ;-)

Oh, boy, I get to spend a few thousand dollars so little Jimmy and Susie don't have to visit grandma and complain about how much she smells. Every nursing home should have one,
I'll miss the cookies, but i get to see my nephew pick his nose on HD.

Bob has some valid points in this exposition of a killer app - however I am going say why the case is not convincing.

Firstly, Videoconferencing, is a non product. There are 100s of contradictory marketing books on why products fail, but they are usually agreed on the three strikes and out rule. You can bring a product to market three times, if it fails on the third, no one should ever try a fourth. Videoconferencing has had its three chances and missed each of them.

The advocates of Video conferencing have always been bandwidth junkies. Oh, it will all be OK when the network gives us more bandwidth. I will be convinced about Telepresence when it's advocates can explain how it address's some of the fundamental reasons why VC has failed in the past in a more mature way than 'we didnt have enough BW to give a good picture'.

I cant resist giving one reason for being sceptical about VC and telepresence. and it's the Homer Simpson-George Bush syndrome. We perceive VC as some micro TV environment. If it's Homer, we are being entertained and illusions are being created. If it's a politician or a newsreader we are probably being told un-truths. The medium is the message () and the medium contaminates the message.

If you really want to look for the next step in enhancing business communications then try G722.2 as an audio codec, it's being pushed by the likes of Polycom and Siemens. I am told it's like talking to someone in the next room. If my subconcious mind believes the person i am talking to is in the next room then the illusion is complete. I dont actually need a more elaborate illusion.
Chris

Bandwidth isn't as big a problem here as latency (lag). Not only is latency a problem on the Internet, but
better compression often creates more latency.

That may be one reason why HP is using MPEG2. (I can think of others.)

I wonder if anyone's using multiple cameras to create a synthetic-aperture image? It'd be a relatively easy and cheap way to address the eye-contact problem on smaller setups.

Bob, we have to reach a consensus that it is not spelled "concensus". :-)

Apple already has telepresence - iChat - and it works like a charm.

Apple already has telepresence - iChat - and it works like a charm.

Don't forget Apple's patent for embedding the camera directly in the screen. See .

Don't forget Apple's patent for embedding the camera directly in the screen. See http://watchingapple.com/2007/05/secret-ichat-hardware-feature-in-leopard/.

I run a telecommuting business, and have wondered about this myself. In my home, which is also my office, I have a 46" 1080p with a Mac Mini hooked up to it. I can easily imagine sitting in front of it and having a meeting with a client overseas.

What we're waiting for is some sort of standardization - by the sounds of things, that's likely to come in the next few years.

Long time reader, first time commenter. I'm losing interest in your editorials Bob. Why? Because I think you're getting fogged be Web 2.0 and the "next big thing" hype. The world doesn't need telepresence or more bandwidth, it needs education, food, medicine and fuel. As technology goes, isn't the OLPC ($100 laptop) more likely to fill more of a need than high bandwidth applications?

I know it's apples and oranges, but aren't we losing touch with what technology could achieve? Couldn't the next killer app reduce famine and disease, rather than allow movers and shakers to see each other's hair as they increase their wealth?

Could you talk about some technology for real folks? You know, the 99.9% of us that don't care if we can teleconference from Starbucks or not?

Well scooper, I like Bob's stuff still -- I've been reading him intermittently FOREVER I think.

The thing with the BIG NEW THING is that, once an actual big new thing does hit (to the bleeding edge folks willing to spend 10x rational prices for something new and nifty), it can actually filter down into the reach of the common person after a bit.

So looking at this stuff is a bit like looking at the future.

As for famine, disease, poverty, and so forth... that's not the charter for this column, sorry.

As for the OLPC, I got to hold and touch one the other week... it's neat! And for some parts of the world, it may be the Next Big Thing, who knows? But as for its technology... meh.

Bob, I think you're right about how teleconferencing will evolve. I don't think it's a killer app. A killer app is a camera screen that provides continual coverage to another location (I think you've discussed this idea before). The meat of most business decisions happens either in the hallway due to a chance run-in or with someone dropping by the room because they were in the area. People only go to a room to meet when they want a meeting (usually an ill-prepared one), and there are too many lonely people forming "working groups" just for company and a sense of accomplishment.

No, this isn't a killer app because if my dad is in the hospital, no amount of telepresence is going to substitute for me being at his side. Solving business problems will not generate the next killer app because we've got thousands of tools to solve thousands of problems. Poster "scooper" already hit it up: push technology to solve the plethora of obvious problems.

Oh, and I challenge you to count the number of times you've said "If you build it, they will come," or similar variations. You just did it again. That phrase is what drove the first tech bubble - there's a news article. It really should have been "If you build it, odds are, no one will care."

I would call it the next "saver" app.
If it converts into less bodies on airplanes, less travel to places like Bejing, and avoiding the choking pollution there, it will save lives and money in the long run.

I'm not sure where the comments on the page go but Charlie Todd struck a note that reminds me of a strong desire I have. I'm 20 yrs old, live with my best friend, and have our buddies over all the time. We love goofing off, partying, cracking jokes, feeling on the edge of modern technology, and developing our social philosophies. And we (by we I mean I spawned the idea, and everyone loves it and has adopted/adapted it as their own) want to share our fun with anyone and everyone willing. Using youtube.com for its mass appeal would get the job done. Unfortunately the budget of a college student is too slim to implement our ideas. Bob your article hits right on this subject but for entertainment purposes not just business. I need huge screens, recording devices, serious internet uploading ability and more money! I want it now! Why am I stuck in the stone age when I see everyone else widdling away with tomorrows tech?

If you've seen OS X 10.5, you know it's the next killer app for small and medium sized businesses!

Wouldn't a series of cameras in the bezel make it easier to make eye contact?

This is really exciting technology and would be perfect for teaching, for health care,for surprise birthday parties. No doubt the pornography industry will latch right onto this and fuel its marketability. If aliens ever look in upon us, they will decide,quite logically, that the Internet was invented for porn....I can see this technology going the same way. Sigh.

"Telepresence"?

So Bob's next "killer app" is just an updated version of the video phones that have been included in every "vision of the future" since the 1950's?

Get real...

A system I've been using for several years is accessgrid www.accessgrid.org
Again it uses multiple projected screens but instead of telepresence you have multiple cameras per site and multiple sites can take part with lots of
(fairly low res) video feeds scattered around the display. I certainly travel much less but I attend more meetings unfortunatly.
My own feeling is that the quality of the sound is most important, and having even a crude video image where you can see everyone make a big difference over normal videoconferencing with voice switched video.
I think videoconferencing will become a must-have feature but the fancy video support will be limited to the boardroom.

Why not take out 50 pixels in the center of the screen and put the camera exactly where it needs to be? Or could there be an area where micro cameras existed between pixels.

In this way the standard LCD screen would always have a camera in the middle.

I believe Apple already has a patent on that camera between pixel idea. Any one know for sure?

Like Stephen Booth I've used AccessGrid for the past couple of years, although the node I was only was a single machine and camera with multiple (LCD) displays.

AccessGrid shows that there's more to telepresence than video conferencing, and that the technology is here to day (in open source form, no less!).

Unfortunately it also shows that - with rare exceptions - geeks couldn't design a UI to save themselves, and that things designed in academic environments have no concept of the networking obstacles faced by people in the real world.

If someone like Apple were to embrace the concepts in AccessGrid and integrate it into the next iChat (using an *open* transport like jabber, please!) then they could have a killer app on their hands. Not earth-shattering, but certainly something to raise a few eyebrows!

Won't Apple TV run iSight and iChat today? That would work for me on my 53". All that's needed is bandwidth.

I have to work with a lot of people scattered around the UK so this would save a lot of time, cash and frustration.

I hope that whoever puts this out first will use open standards so everyone can innovate without getting sued to a standstill !!

Not everyone wants video conferencing for outsourcing purposes. I don't even like to use the telephone with my outsourcing vendors, much prefering IM and email. But for certain industries, I can see that it would be invaluable. There is a lot of outsourcing going on in the movie/animation industry already and bandwidth still is a bit of a barrier there because we are talking about HUGE files. So on balance I think it is just going to accelerate outsourcing on an even bigger curve than it is now.

An interesting technology video on YouTube about what is possible with mounting two videos on either side of the screen. The research basically involved using binocular vision and some computer software to simulate an eyepiece between the two cameras, with digital cameras so cheap now it is easily doable with dual mounted cameras on the sides of that TV.

The video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL_MVN7Qf-w and the part on the binocular vision is towards the end (the early stuff is interesting too).

My dear Nerd.....

You have completely glossed over the very profitable, and very REAL application that WILL create the market for this technology. As you know, this is right up my field, and we are the "Killer App" for this technology.
The rest of the world can thank us, and our industry by just doing exactly what they have been doing for the past 50 years.....act naturally with all new technologies.

Don't worry Bob, we'll work out the "kinks" in the system (Pun intended) and you boys will have an inexpensive Telepresence system for all, for cheap.

Of course this sounds like THE killer app for small and SOHO businesses. But it sounds like the reality of it happening anytime soon is based solely on some executives in telco and broadband seeing a market. They don't appear to be so good at seeing bandwith driven markets. I also don't count on Steve Jobs making the decisions we would like him to make.

AT&T built one of the first (perhaps THE first) video phones decades ago. It was reasonably priced and worked over copper. When it flopped, their research discovered women didn't want it because they didn't want to fix their hair just to answer the phone.

I think this is the crux of why teleconferencing will never be more than a niche, not a "killer" app. Even if it becomes cost effective, in a VERY long time, too many people won't use it. Thus, there is a chicken and egg effect holding it back. I don't have ichat or a web cam because none of my non-techie friends or family will. Therefore it's a waste of money for me to adopt it.

Bob understands compu-tech. He doesn't understand human beings, micro or macro economics. Therefore, his future predictions come up sounding pretty silly. Most of the comments here debunk his conclusions very quickly.

Hey Bob:

Where is last years killer app? What was it, the new disk drive that's going to revolutionize everything and solve the world's energy crisis?

Or was it the Brooklyn Bridge on sale again?

About 5 years ago I moved to Dallas, 1100 miles from my then current employer, and when rehired to continue working with them from afar, we employed iChat to lower our $400/month long distance bill to virtually zero. It was tremendously useful, especially when one had a few quick questions about a particular piece of work.

When Apple released iChat with video, we went out and bought iSight cameras, and immediately transformed the way we worked. The cameras stayed on throughout the work day, giving us a virtual office we had only dreamed of.

I work for a large corporation now, and I long for the days of telecommuting (literally!). I think the real power of video-conferencing begins on the desktop. The fact that I now work behind a firewall the size of the Great Wall makes this scenario very difficult to attain. Apple's inability to break into the business enterprise complicates the matter. As long as Microsoft maintains its hold on the business world, little will happen to make video conferencing inexpensive and less complicated.

Hi Bob,

Be interesting to know what you think of the current video conferencing apps around - if these are adequate or really will be superceded by this mega-technology?

I write for ooVooworld, the unofficial WOM world about the free video conferencing download ooVoo (and posted about your article this morning!) Due to proprietary protocols this is bringing high quality multi-user video conferencing into people's homes for free - do you really think they would be willing to pay for the extra full-body full-monty of telepresence?

It may be a good service for big corporations or even governments but does it hve validity for smaller businesses or regular people? Good to know your thoughts or those of your readers...

Apple doesn't need to sell TVs, just iSight cameras that plug into the USB port of an AppleTV.

Something like this could be hacked up today using a hi-def camera and a Mac Mini, as a proof of concept.

Wait, didn't we just all agree a few weeks ago that the US was MISERABLY behind in consumer bandwidth and that this was to be the de facto standard for the forseeable future???


Now you're calling this high bandwidth sucker the 'next killer app'??


You're talking out of both sides of your mouth now, Bob; something more apropos for a politician than a futurist...

I can understand the appeal to businesses, but what would a consumer want with it? None of my friends even use webcams because they "don't want ppl to see me in my bathrobe." So, to amplify that experience, make it high-definition... I must be way off the target demographic. Sorry.

You realize that Apple has patented a mechanism for placing the camera behind the screen itself?

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220060007222%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20060007222&RS=DN/20060007222

I just have to agree with the other naysayers in this post. I understand the "what" part of this article, but I simply don't see the "how" (as in, how something like this will be implemented for broad user penetration). You spoke about America's "delapidated" broadband infrastructure weeks ago (which is entirely true) but then you talk about a "high-speed" technology that is completely limited by this archaic infrastructure! Some explanation is certainly in order.

I've seen Cisco's Telepresence demo (their product is actually called 'Telepresence'), and while it is neat and all, it will be a long time before it is fully ready let alone cheap enough for most businesses to afford. Sure, large companies and some government bodies can afford it; but it'll have to reach down into the small/medium size businesses (SMBs) before it'll ever reach the consumer, and it is far from that.



Part of that is just due to the cost of operations. Not many can afford an OC-3 or a DS-3 line; not many SMBs can afford the space for a dedicated tele-conferencing room that would be required, or the extra pay for the technicians to maintain it. (And at least for Cisco, you'd likely have to get special certs, which would raise your pay too.)



So, while it would be neat. We're still likely decades away from it. AT&T, Verizon, etc. all need to get in gear and upgrade from copper to fiber-optics for everyone - not just to the neighborhood box/CO, but also directly to the house, and home builders need to build it inside the house too - before anything of that nature will be able to take off.

Sounds like Asimov's the Naked Sun with telepresence being preferable to actual face to face meetings because of sanitary, social and safety reasons.

Now we just need the darn intelligent robots who do all our work for us.

I've seen this demo'd at dreamworks, including their 1 million dollar conference room to conference room connection with telepresence lazer pointers. The quality was breathtaking.

I've also flown thousands of miles miles for a single meeting--it has amazing value.

Datarates are dropping. I just got a quote for $3K/month for a DS3 for my office.

Apple, some time ago, patented a technique that embeds a camera in the LCD to have eye-to-eye contact. it is just a matter of time before they bring it to market.

This is the future--bet on it.

This is great for companies to save airfare but what I really want is a "party presense" gizmo that let's me see distant family at, say, Christmas, and let's me swivel a camera around to see little Johnny open the toy I sent and let's me talk to people in the room. It would show my image on a screen and let's them hear me. It might have wireless headphones & mic so you could have good conversation with Aunt Bee. It would hook wirelessly to your main computer/internet connection.

You might stick it on a couch, put a hat on it and let's it do it's thing.

Roger - you can already do this really - just use a free video chat app like ooVoo, put your computer on speaker and move your webcam around the room, or right into little Johnny's delighted face.

You could put the hat on the webcam, just to make things feel special.

This is nothing new.

In a similar way that Arthur C. Clarke predicted/invented satellite communications, Clifford D. Simak wrote about what you call telepresence in his centuries-spanning novel City. Although telepresence is dealt with in an offhanded manner as a part of the story's background, a major plotpoint of the story is based on the societal consequences of telepresence as it leads to the death of character with tragic consequences for several main chacters and mankind as a whole.

Killer app, indeed.

George Orwell would have loved this new technology!!!

Bob, i bet u´re right! I´m waiting now nearly 2 years that this comes true after Appleinsider mentioned at April 27, 2006:
"Another Apple patent filing -- originally overlooked by the media -- has alos suddenly garnered attention from various online outlets. The filing, titled "Integrated sensing display," was first filed on Jun. 21, 2004 and later published on Jan. 12, 2006.

In the filing, Apple engineers describe a new kind of computer display that can simultaneously take photos while displaying media on the screen.

The idea behind the invention is to wedge thousands of microscopic image sensors between the LCD cells that make up the display. Each sensor would be responsible for capturing a piece of the overall photo. These pieces would then almost instantly be pieced together by software to form a complete image." - Steve, please make it happen! ...soon

OR...this could be the next videophone or ISDN. I can see the compelling drivers for this as a business application, but home use? Maybe I have to see telepresence to appreciate it, but my gut feeling is that a system that costs about $300k now isn't going to reach consumer price levels for at least 15 years (Moore's law: Figure prices halve every 18 months) regardless of how amazing it is.

Also, given that you've spent much of the past month bemoaning how the telcos scammed taxpayers without providing enough bandwidth to consumers for even a video downlink, what makes you think they will expand home user bandwidth to the required levels for telepresence? They're increasing downlink speed so they can compete against cable for HD broadcasts. They don't even see telepresence as a market yet.

Video conferencing has been used by big business as a subsititute for business travel for the best part of a decade. Making it high def is not going to make it a killer app.

...Apple engineers describe a new kind of computer display that can simultaneously take photos while displaying media on the screen.

George Orwell was definitely ahead of his time. This perfectly describes the TV that also watches you in 1984. Will parents want this to keep an eye on the kids/babysitter/teenager? How long before government requires telepresence devices to be "always on" in the cause of the neverending war on terrorism? After all, if you are against the telepresence TV being "always on," then "the Terrorist win" or "you must be for the Terrorists."

Combined with required RFID implantation--some businesses are already requiring employees to be implanted--and you have complete control of the population.

Actually, making it high-def would make it a killer-app for those of us who're corporate telecommuters. I work for a big silicon-valley outfit but live in Texas -- if I could have remote face-to-face meetings every day with my boss, they'd reimburse me for the purchase in a heartbeat.

I think a killer app would be the return of nerd tv.

I still don't get why the high-def is such a 'killer'. I see quite enough of myself with an ordinary webcam and free video conferencing app - the quality of these is now such that you can see body language, facial expression etc perfectly well, with multiple users. What are we talking about here, business meetings or method acting classes?

It's ironic that the week after this article came out, my next lesson in school was to discuss how organizations can effectively use Internet conferencing.

Thanks for providing such great information and links.

I would like to try to add another perspective here. Bob may have overstated somewhat when he wrote that it would be the next "killer app". However, that doesn't mean that this technology won't greatly increase in revenues.

Why do technology columns/chats so often erode into arguments about whether something will be the killer app or a total failure. I thought we were coming to this alternative form of media to get some real perspective, not the fluff false dichotomies that are always regurgitated for us on TV.

I see global warming as a major driving force for telepresence. I just don't see the high-end stuff being used to the same extent that Bob does. Anything that is reasonable in price and technically feasible that can reduce carbon footprint might work.

Oh, and for the people who wrote "well, teleconferencing was tested in the 1970s and.."
Who cares?! I don't think women will be quite as intimidated by a video camera in this generation that is literally growing up with technology from the day they are born. (Think heart monitors during labour). People are more used to technology all around. Young women who were once afraid of it are exponentially less so today.

Shplad

Lots of us work in our underwear when using the computer. We use the phone or a chat program to collaborate cheaply. With telepresence, I need to allocate part of my house to be presentable and I need to be sure to put on pants. Maybe I can get some real-time CGI to paint in some pants and a haircut for me. May as well turn my grey hairs black and trim my mustache.

People with disabling conditions and disfigured faces now have a equal chance on the net. Now they'll have to hire actors to play them on 'TV', coached from offscreen through an earpiece.

Virtual cosmetics, anyone?

I am currently managing a project at work. We are only 6 weeks into this and today I had to interview a firm who is bidding for our work. I am going out of town in the next couple of days and the other firm will not be able to meet until the day that I travel. This is unfortunate, as I prefer to interview these companies in person rather than over the phone. Since there is no other choice, I will have to participate via conference call. But there is nothing like talking to folks face to face, where you can pick up on a lot more, than over the phone. I know that our company would greatly benefit from this technology, especially since we are reducing costs wherever we can, and currently travel expenses are sky-high.