Coming soon ..or maybe not.
Here is a pretty good CBS news story of our company technology showing how "Telepresence" is more than just marketing buzz. For the first time in a long time I really do believe in our old marketing slogan "changing the way we work, live, play, and learn." It's an old slogan but I think it still captures a lot of what our company strives to achieve each day. OK, I'll be the first to admit that, yes, I'm drinking the company Kool-Aid. But seriously, I am a believer that video will significantly change our lives (if I didn't then I am working in the wrong company).
The obvious "work" impact:
I don't pretend to know all the above outcomes here but you get idea.
Over memorial, I met the brother-in-law of our neighbor who telecommutes at IBM doing IT Project management. It was great to meet another telecommuter. We talked about the joys of working in our boxers, the productivity benefits as well as some of the challenges such as the need to overcommunicate in order to stay visible. I remember thinking at that time how beneficial video might be if I had it. Technically I could set it up a web cam today but I feel the pains (quality, performance, etc) outweigh the benefits. Also the folks on the other side do not use video daily at this time. Which brings me to my main point here. Video is inevitable. It will change our lives in many ways that we may not appreciate or realize today. It will eventually even be Joe-six-pack friendly. But it will take a while. Like most things in life, buying the latest & greatest is cost prohibitive. Same story here. But there is also the hurdle of networking infrastructure. Video is a bandwidth hog. Just looking at the consumer side alone, our 1.5Mbps - 6Mbps broadband connections are not designed for full HD streaming video over IP. As a comparison OTA HDTV uses 20-25Mbps using MPEG2 compression. However, newer codecs, such as AVC (MPEG-4) and VC-1(Windows Media) are now available that can reduce HD data rates to eight Mbps or even below. That may be the trick here. In fact, I -think- that is what our company solution is using today. Broadband networks outside the US ( ie Korea, Japan) are much farther along than we are. On the mobile wireless side, there is still the question of pending 4G standards . I've been reading how we won't see 4G until at least 2015. Bummer if that were true. What about 3G? To my knowledge, there is no form of compression that allows high quality video over 3G networks.
The obvious "work" impact:
- Less commuting (which means less stress on the commuter and more time can be spent doing real work vs being stuck in traffic. Also the commuter saves $$$! on gas) . Do you really think traffic is going to get any better?
- Less business air travel
- Better corporate/social responsibility: Reducing carbon emissions for a Greener Earth.
- Collaboration takes on a whole new meaning.
- Less commute time could potentially translate to more quality time with family.
- How great would it be to see and talk to your family and friends over your HDTV set? Keeping in touch takes on a whole new meaning.
- A phone call on your mobile handheld can easily become a video call.
- The content you want to watch now revolves around your schedule. Everything is on demand. No more DVRs or HD set top boxes.
- Overcrowded classrooms are a thing of the past.
- The girl you're "hitting on" in class is in fact living in a different country.
I don't pretend to know all the above outcomes here but you get idea.
Over memorial, I met the brother-in-law of our neighbor who telecommutes at IBM doing IT Project management. It was great to meet another telecommuter. We talked about the joys of working in our boxers, the productivity benefits as well as some of the challenges such as the need to overcommunicate in order to stay visible. I remember thinking at that time how beneficial video might be if I had it. Technically I could set it up a web cam today but I feel the pains (quality, performance, etc) outweigh the benefits. Also the folks on the other side do not use video daily at this time. Which brings me to my main point here. Video is inevitable. It will change our lives in many ways that we may not appreciate or realize today. It will eventually even be Joe-six-pack friendly. But it will take a while. Like most things in life, buying the latest & greatest is cost prohibitive. Same story here. But there is also the hurdle of networking infrastructure. Video is a bandwidth hog. Just looking at the consumer side alone, our 1.5Mbps - 6Mbps broadband connections are not designed for full HD streaming video over IP. As a comparison OTA HDTV uses 20-25Mbps using MPEG2 compression. However, newer codecs, such as AVC (MPEG-4) and VC-1(Windows Media) are now available that can reduce HD data rates to eight Mbps or even below. That may be the trick here. In fact, I -think- that is what our company solution is using today. Broadband networks outside the US ( ie Korea, Japan) are much farther along than we are. On the mobile wireless side, there is still the question of pending 4G standards . I've been reading how we won't see 4G until at least 2015. Bummer if that were true. What about 3G? To my knowledge, there is no form of compression that allows high quality video over 3G networks.
posted by baconandeggs at 9:10 AM
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