Switched On: Towards telepresence's tipping point
By Ross Rubin 
posted Oct 9th 2009 6:09PM
posted Oct 9th 2009 6:09PM
But this is starting to change. One capability that has somewhat filtered through recently has been multi-room audio, which had to go wireless with the Sonos music system. While a Sonos system is still a relatively expensive product, but it is a drop in the bucket when compared with systems such as those from Russound. And telepresence may be getting next in line. The recent release of the Avaak Vue lives up to its promise of being a relatively simple and affordable product that extends webcams to walls, allowing consumers to peek in at will at what is going on at their home. Access is from a simple Web site that allows you to view up to 50 cameras around the home by dragging and dropping them onto a Web page. The Vue system is also designed for the Twitter generation. You can share video recorded to Avaak's servers or live streams with a small group, and Avaak has plans to facilitate events with even larger audiences so that you can share your Windows 7 house party with the world. And you can expect more video efforts arrived at the home with Cisco's recent moves to acquire corporate videoconferencing company Tandberg and consumer camcorder company Pure Digital, makers of the Flip video camera.
But it's one thing to see what's happening in your home. How about affecting it? Schlage, the security division of industrial giant Ingersoll Rand, now offers the Z-Wave-based Schlage LiNK, a key component of which is a door lock that can be opened from most Web browsers and many cell phones. The lock can alert you when it's beenopened via text message. Even better, different members of the household can be given different codes for entry or you can assign a temporary code for, say, a babysitter or contractor without worrying about distributing a key.
The Schlage LiNK starter kit also starts at about $300, but it is designed to be a do-it-yourself product and is sold at major retailers such as Amazon, Radio Shack and Lowe's in addition to custom installers. More interestingly, though, it serves as a Trojan horse for a Z-Wave network, one of the major wireless home control standards that includes thousands of different products for controlling lights, cameras, drapes and practically anything else around a home, all remotely. In an age where many say privacy is dead for many and undesirable for some, new technology products are at least giving more consumers more option for affordably monitoring and controlling your home. Twenty-five years after 1984, we can now be our own Big Brother.
My roommate has one of these and we use it to stalk our cats. I'm totally amazed at how long the camera batteries last and continue to broadcast. They're pretty awesome.
Check out Vitamin D Video: http://www.vitamindinc.com/demo.php — it can detect people in your videos, and you can set up rules like "send me an SMS when someone walks through this door". It uses brain-like technology from Numenta (full disclosure: that's where I work).
So....will your house go crazy and try and kill you?
Just what we need... more ways to spy on people.
A few years back I walked in on my boss setting up a webcam to "monitor a certain employee's internet usage" because she wasn't "getting her work done". Needless to say, she was one of the more "attractive" employees at our office and I'm sure the webcam was designed to catch more than just what was on the monitor. He wasn't employed there for very much longer.
These little cameras might get a lot of people in trouble...
Wow, webcam to monitor internet usage.. What happen to logs!!
I also heard THEY use Sketch Artists to draw the exact moment an employee uses the internets for non-business activities
I just installed a Tandberg system here at work. It is pretty damn awesome. Our old Polycom system took someone that KNEW how to use it, to get it to work.
With this latest one, I sent it to one of our sites. The manager down there got the box, and the engineer was out. I told her it was simple to set up. 15 minutes later, we were connected. These new telepresense systems are getting easy... and I agree with the assessment about Cisco. The price is being driven down, and the products are becoming more affordable for more people/organizations.
A D-link NETWORK camera ($80-$90) , a computer (you're using it right now) and a logmein account, surveilance from your phone or any PC.
CRAPPY QUALITY VIDEO
It has a red engadget logo on it.
Nice catch! That's hilarious because Engadget just had another post today about a Croatian group stealing it's logo and then there's this one. Haha!
Hey, thanks for letting me know that this crap needs to have an WAN and that the video is stored on VueZones remote servers. I received this equipment today (three cameras and base station) and packed it up for return within 5 minutes!