Telepresence shatters communication barriers

June 10, 2009 from InfoWorld – “Well before the current world financial crisis struck, organizations have sought inventive ways to engage in face-to-face meetings without the need to travel. Companies have turned to services such as Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro, Cisco WebEx, Citrix GoToMeeting, and Microsoft Live Meeting as a means for workers in multiple locations to share presentations and otherwise collaborate.

No question, these tools greatly reduce costly, productivity-sapping travel, with the added benefit of lowering a company's carbon footprint. Yet scratchy audio quality, out-of-sync slides, and tiny, Webcam-quality video often diminish these solutions' usefulness. Similarly, more traditional videoconferencing systems (which have been around for decades) suffer from low utilization rates -- partially because of complicated, unreliable technology.

The door has now opened for telepresence solutions: a conferencing environment that seeks to mimic the in-person experience as much as possible. Several technologies make telepresence possible. High-definition video cameras and large, flat-panel monitors clearly display participants in life size. Optimized networks -- making use of QoS and even application-aware protocol acceleration -- help eliminate audio and video delay over long-distance and high-latency WANs. As such, participants can make eye contact with colleagues and immediately pick up on all-important visual cues -- such as how someone reacts to an offer. Moreover, operating the systems can be as simple as using a television remote control or telephone…”

180 View – Telepresence is going to get better and cheaper until it’s the best way to travel – at least for business purposes.