Cisco Umi hands-on
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At Cisco's CTIA press conference this week we got a chance to "experience" the Umi consumer video conferencing system, and it's pretty much what you'd expect: FaceTime for your living room. Just bigger, wider, and with, well... more living room. The hardware consists of 3 parts: a camera unit, a set-top box, and an infrared remote. The camera is able to pan and zoom, and connects to the set-top box via two cables. The set-top box features connections for power, Ethernet, and both HDMI in and out (for passthrough) as well as optical audio out We also got a video demo of Umi Connect by Steve Sullivan, product manager at Cisco -- it's the online portal which handles your messages, videos, call history, and contacts. There's also a "share" feature, for posting videos to Facebook and YouTube. Take a look at some video of Umi in action after the break, and please: remember to keep your pants on.
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