Gizmodo: teleconferencing

What Bill Gates Was Talking About When He Accidentally Announced RoundTable

Jason Chen — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 14:00:25 EDT

Bill Gates' slip at the D conference was one of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it slips that you probably wouldn't even notice if you weren't vaguely familiar with the product. His gaffe? The unintentional announcement of "RoundTable," a research project we've been hearing about back in early 2006 when it was still called Ringcam.

What it is, essentially, is a 360-Degree conferencing camera that's made up of four individual webcams to capture everyone that sits around a table. Hence, RoundTable.

Microsoft even had a press release in October last year about the project—see here—that talks about how they're going to integrate RoundTable into Office Communications Server 2007 or Live Meeting.

The price? Less than $3,000. Which is a buttload less than Cisco's TelePresence 3000 which was featured on this (lousy) season of 24.

As for the release date, we're still not sure. After all, the announcement was just a slip by Gates. – Jason Chen

Thanks, tipster!

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]

Polycom Communicator Via Skype

Charlie White — Tue, 02 May 2006 13:55:43 EDT

Polycom cut its teeth on conferencing hardware, and now it's teamed up with the oh-so-free Skype VoIP service for hands-free full duplex speakerphonage via a USB connection. There are two microphones strategically placed inside the unit, letting multiple people join in on the conversation.

Controls on the front let you launch Skype and initiate and hang up calls. There's also a headphone jack, and then there's the 22kHz sound quality which Polycom calls "CD-quality conferencing." No pricing was available yet; the company says it will be "shipping very soon."

Product page [Polycom, via productdose]