Gizmodo: conferencing

Callpod Phoenix Bluetooth Conferencing System Hands-On

Jason Chen — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:39:06 EDT

The Callpod Phoenix Bluetooth conferencing system is finally available, connecting up to five Bluetooth headsets at the same time. It's very much a business-class solution, targeted towards medical, emergency response, restaurant, retail, government, military and enterprise customers who need a teleconferencing solution that doesn't require people sitting around a table, smelling each other's foul breath. With the Phoenix you can make a shared phone call with all five participants sitting at their own desks—assuming their desks are within the 100 meter Bluetooth range.

Our own tests at home found that the Phoenix was pretty solid in doing what it promises. Pairing the five included headsets was as easy as pairing one to your phone. You can then take the headsets and wander around your office (house) and be able to talk to any of the other headsets automatically. Muting and standby options are also available.

Of course, the main reason you'll be using this for (in businesses at least) is to make calls, and that works just fine. Same Callpod Dragon quality, just multiplied by five. The unit also comes with a car charger, a five-way Chargepod charger and a Drone, which is a Bluetooth dongle for your computer so you can pipe the conferencing through a Skype call.

Would we recommend this? Sure, if you're in one of the target markets listed above. If it's your business that's paying the $3000 price tag, what do you have to worry about? You'll get to listen and participate in conference meetings while going to the bathroom. Can you really put a price on that? Well, yes, and it's $3000. [Callpod]

Callpod Phoenix Provides Bluetooth Conferencing With Headsets

Jason Chen — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:20:42 EST

We talked about this briefly in our review of Callpod's Dragon Bluetooth headset, but the company (who also brought you the Chargepod) is coming out with a conferencing solution as well. Instead of hooking up two Dragon headsets directly to each other, you can connect a bunch of them through a Phoenix, which serves as a teleconferencing base without making everyone crowd around a table with a Polycom on it. In fact, people don't even have to be in the same room—you could walk to the bathroom and take a leak and nobody would even know. [Callpod]

AT&T/Cingular Denying Free Conference Calls to Subscribers

Jason Chen — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 12:00:44 EDT

If you've had to do phone conferencing at work, you're probably familiar with these free conference services that AT&T/Cingular has just decided to block. The company claims that these services, many of which are terminated (the end point of the call) in a call exchange in Iowa that has a 712 area code. The local carriers of this exchange are charging an "exorbitant" amount of money for AT&T to pipe their calls through—enough so that AT&T's even filed sue against them.

What does this mean to you? AT&T's about to cut off your access to many 712 numbers from companies like FreeConferenceCall.com very soon. This, no doubt, is meant to pressure the local providers to lower their rates or face the fact that AT&T's tens of millions of users will no longer be calling their customers. – Jason Chen

AT&T/Cingular blocks cellular customers from free conference call services [Ars Technica]

Apple's iPhone Depends Heavily on OS X Integration

Jason Chen — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 09:30:54 EST

One of the main attractions of Apple's upcoming iPhone is how much integration it will have with OS X. Being able to sync your calendar, contacts, tasks, email, files, bookmarks, and whatever else with your Mac is a dream for many Apple users today. But how much integration and how heavily Apple is counting on this to sell the phone is that hasn't quite been explored.

AppleInsider spins a yarn.

The project originally started about three years ago along with Mac OS X Tiger (10.4). Apple put something together from its proprietary hardware and software and started showing it to wireless partners.

The main selling point was to integrate with OS X, with one application being the ability to control .Mac services from the road. Others were iTunes integration, video ringback tones that you set through Address Book, being able to send a video to the person you called that plays before the call was answered, and full iChat integration (video conferencing).

During the tour, Apple was reportedly both talking with T-Mobile and analyzing MVNO possibilities. The deal may not have panned out yet, but they've "become very good friends".

An interesting tale, one which we'll get to see the fruits of firsthand come January. – Jason Chen

Apple smart phone project rests on Mac OS X tie-ins [Apple Insider]

Cisco's HD Video Conferencing Impresses Robert Scoble

Jason Chen — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 19:10:45 EDT

Retailing at $80,000 for one screen and $300,000 for three screens, Cisco's telepresence technology simulates the act of actually being there, which is way better than traditional teleconferencing. The whole setup is backed by a supercomputer, three plasma screens with 1080p/30FPS video, and is SIP based, running over an IP network. You can fit two life sized Robert Scobles on each screen, plus Cisco comes and installs it for you.

This isn't anything regular consumers can go out and purchase, but you can try and get your company to hook one up for communications across different branches. – Jason Chen

HD Telepresence Arrives [Scobelizer via Slashgear]

Direct Link to Video [Podtech]

Microsoft RingCam - 360 Degree Camera

Jason Chen — Wed, 17 May 2006 19:15:36 EDT

We can see these things being useful for security applications, or conferencing, or for, you know, an orgy. But we don't think consumers have ants in their pantaloons for a 360 degree webcam.

Made up of four cheap firewire webcams of 640x480 pixels each, the images are combined to make one large panorama pic. According to Computer World Magazine, this is set to be released later this year.

RingCam [Microsoft Research - Thanks Bruce!]