web conferencing
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Ford is turning its EVs into video conference rooms with help from Cisco
Ford and Cisco have teamed up to develop a natively-running WebEx app for use on EV infotainment systems.
Microsoft demos panoramic cam for RoundTable
If you actually made it all the way through that rather dense post from the other day on what Microsoft is now calling its Unified Communications Platform, then you probably remember us mentioning a new software package called RoundTable that gives users a panoramic view of all the other participants at the remote end of a web-conference. Well now we've spied the first pics of that 360 degree camera which enables this immersive experience -- developed out of a Microsoft project called RingCam -- thanks to a recent demonstration featuring company employees and sitcom stars engaged in a scripted debate over what to order for lunch. As we saw at the mock meeting, users are able to toggle between viewing the entire remote group or just the active speaker, with RoundTable also allowing the speaker to broadcast documents or PowerPoint slides directly to participants' monitors. Like most of the other hardware and software elements that are part of the new platform, both RoundTable and the complementary cam will be available to business-types sometime during the second quarter of next year.
HP Coliseum does web conferencing in 3D
While we've been waiting patiently for the Xbox Live Vision cam to be released the folks at HP Labs have been hard at work on a heavy-duty system for "immersive teleconferencing" that can be run on a standard PC. A recently released research paper demonstrates a rig consisting of five FireWire equipped-webcams strategically mounted to an LCD monitor. Software combines the cams' images into a real-time 3D model that looks like a character out of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and mimics your every move, shrugs included. The creation and transmission of the virtual you into the rather drab looking virtual conference room takes up some serious resources -- the testing machines were reportedly equipped with dual Intel Xeon processors and between 1GB and 4GB RAM -- so chances are if these go into production they'll be hitting fancy corporate offices well before you'll see them conjuring up all manner of bizarre YouTube videos.[Thanks, Staska. Warning: PDF link]
