Video Conferencing - My Initial Skepticsim But Now...

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Telepresence and Holography / Holograms - November 2008

Editor’s viewpoint on their differences, likenesses and future...

We all just recently viewed an historic CNN holographic interview on an historic Election Night. CNN stated this type of imaging has never been done before on National TV and I believe that. I haven’t seen anything like it. The live interview caught me by surprise and sure had the “wow” factor attached to it didn’t it? Here’s a link to the actual interview.

CNN Hologram Video

The question now has to be asked. Is it Telepresence?

I’m no expert on the subject but I’m going to throw my hat into the ring, go out on a limb and say yes, I believe it is. Although I know many video conferencing purists are rolling their eyes and grabbing their guns right about now with my statement.

While I do know that Telepresence still hasn’t been universally defined (Houston, we have a problem), here’s how I see it…. Broken down to its simplest form - “tele” (through electronic means) and “presence” (present). This is how I’m justifying my opinion by lumping holography and Telepresence together. Just as Telepresence is surely an offshoot of video conferencing, holographic imaging (like we viewed on CNN) surely has to be considered an offshoot of Telepresence. The interviewer was “telepresent” from Chicago and beamed into the CNN Election Headquarters. She was most assuredly - “telepresent”. There was negligible latency, the imaging was fantastic and both interviewers were rehearsed on what they would say. I’ve just recently read that CNN actually “downgraded” the experience to make it “movie” quality and not as good as it could have been. Maybe they thought us mere mortals would be shocked if they showed their complete hand. I have a feeling it was so big to them, they didn’t want it to get upstaged by the historic election. I’m willing to bet we’ll see the “true” power of this technology in the upcoming weeks and months when they can put the pedal to the medal and show it off without having it sidetracked.

What an amazing time for this technology (all differences and opinions aside). Telepresence Doctors, nurses, teachers, schools and healthcare (healthpresence) will benefit from the recent gains in this state-of-the-art industry whether holograms, Telepresence or holography. Airlines also have to see the threat to a portion of their business travel. Hell, who wants go through security and fly to Miami for a two-hour conference when you can look them in the eye via Telepresence?

Beam me up Scotty! Simply amazing…!

Visit the free Telepresence Forum for more information and discussion

Your Editor and Administrator - L II
"Ride on the Next Plane of Existence" TM

Way back then, I had my own share of doubts with web video conferencing, particularly when business was concerned.

The first time I ever got to see an online video conference session, I wasn?t exactly impressed. My boss though, who owned a shop, was very much all praise for it, but then again, he?s always been easy to impress when it came to gadgets and gizmos. My sentiments for video conferencing were not the same.

We used a video conference setup in coordinating and communicating with other shop branches across the nation. We were in the heating and cooling industry, and had a number of branches scattered in various locations. Through video conference sessions, we got to see just what?s going on in our sister branches.

One would think, ?how could you find that to be a problem?? Well, truth be told, because of video conferencing, the pressures of work were raised, as it intimidated a number of employees. We were in the area of sales, and, truth be told, our training wasn?t exactly that great. We had enough troubles as it were then.

With a video conferencing system up and about, the pressure level just rose. Oh, and this: after every session, the equipment would just breakdown. I just felt that it just wasn?t worth it. Considering all the resulting factors, I felt web video conference was just a lot of hot air.

Years later, when I finally managed to setup a business of my own, one of my own business partners, suggested we implement a video conference setup to facilitate our communications with our clients who were too far away for physical meetings and such.

Considering my experience with video conferencing, I was against it, yet diplomatic in telling my partner my non-interest in it. I explained to him that what difference would video conferencing impact, when what I have to say I could easily say through email.

The other concern I had was the bandwidth we would need. Originally our office was just using a DSL line but I knew eventually we had to increase our bandwidth to a T1 and run voice t1 and data over the same lines as our business grew. It was just me thinking short term over the initial cost but I had to really think of it as an investment and know this would help our company grow and become more efficient.

He insisted and insisted that it would be a huge benefit for us, and soon enough, we had a video conference session set up in our meeting room. He of course spent for the equipment himself, confident that seeing what video conferencing has become now would surely change my mind over my sentiments of it in the past. After a session, I realized how wrongly placed my sentiments for video conferencing were.

Looking back now, I feel somewhat funny over how adamant I was against video conferencing. It does have its line of benefits, as well as its breed of convenience. Today, I?m actually much more open to the idea of it, but not exactly open enough to trade it for the more traditional means of communication.

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Telepresence - "Ride on the Next Plane of Existence" - Telepresence
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