All publishers need to continue to push vendors such as Amazon.com to unify around the ePub file format, while monitoring how popular Apple's iPad becomes among serious readers (meaning those that purchase multiple titles every year). Manufacturers will have to decide whether to pursue lower-cost stand-alone devices or higherend media tablets capable of running multiple applications with the service to support these applications, or do both. Business Impact: This technology is likely to define primary reading experiences for a large audience of consumers in the five-year time frame. Progress is being made on the technology barriers that thwarted the previous incarnations of e-book reading devices. The launch of Apple's iPad and the expected launch of several additional media tablets based on other operating systems has accelerated the interest in e-books. However, issues surrounding cross-platform compatibility and the availability of full catalogs across the variety of reader devices are still affecting acceptance. Benefit Rating: High Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience Maturity: Adolescent Sample Vendors: Amazon.com; Fujitsu; Plastic Logic; Sony
Video Telepresence Analysis By: Scott Morrison; Robert Mason Definition: Video telepresence is a form of immersive video communication that creates the impression of being in the same room as other conference participants. Most telepresence suites run high-definition (HD) video resolution at 720p (progressive scan) or 1,080p lines. Conference participants appear as life-size individuals on large plasma, LCD or projection screens. Multiple cameras and microphones pick up individuals or pairs of individuals, so that all audiovisual information becomes directional, with good eye contact and spatial sound aligned with the location of the person speaking. Telepresence suites are designed and assembled by the system supplier to provide layout, acoustics, color tones and lighting that maximize the perception of realism. Vendors have recognized a need for more adaptive solutions, which fit into established environments and cost considerably less than fully immersive suites. In addition, some providers offer "lite" solutions, which have multiscreen capabilities that are basically a step up from regular HD room videoconferencing. Operational simplicity and high availability are other key factors for telepresence. The systems are designed to enable anyone to use them to their full potential with little or no prior training, without the connectivity problems associated with traditional room videoconferencing solutions. Telepresence systems make high demands on the network, with low-compression, three-screen, HD rooms taking anything from 8 Mbps to 45 Mbps of dedicated bandwidth for video and content. They are typically deployed across Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) networks, often dedicated to and designed for video traffic, with minimal latency, so that users can retain natural levels of spontaneity during interactions with other participants. Vendors are now moving quickly toward telepresence interoperability with each other and with traditional, room-based videoconferencing systems, desktop video and unified communications solutions. In particular, the relatively wide adoption of the Cisco-developed Telepresence Interoperability Protocol (TIP) will offer a mechanism to deal with multiscreen environments, as
Publication Date: 2 August 2010/ID Number: G00205757 Š 2010 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
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