on one side, two of the screens are at 45 degrees, and then the other four screens are at 90 degrees. On one side we use six screens to show full head-to-toe telepresence video. We find the head-to-toe telepresence video provides a very natural communication experience with the people in the remote site because it conveys context and body language in a way that is superior to more typical head-andshoulders video. People can move around the room freely without the boundaries of fixed seating locations, and this allows people to interact much more naturally.
video telepresence products so that we can integrate a video and interactive content collaboration experience like Augmented Collaboration.
Another big area is not only looking at a single mode or device for collaboration, but using multiple modes together by using different devices at the same time. We have a feature called intelligent proximity that automatically pairs your device with the telepresence environment that you’re in and allows you to start using At Cisco Live – The DevNet developers press in to check out your device in the same context On the other side of the L we Spring Roll as the broader collaboration have the four screens used for session. If you want to walk interactive content collaboration. Both rooms see the exact same up to the board, you can do that. But if you just want to text content collaboration screen where they can share presentations something into your device and contribute to the session, then and write on a white board. You can flip through presentations you can do that too. What we are starting to see is that people have very easily with a two-finger swiping gesture. You can annotate different modes of collaboration going on at the same time. These and draw on the slides and on the whiteboard, and people on tools can come together, and you can use the best technology each side can do it simultaneously. In addition, we integrated a for the right task at the right time. Instead of being completely mobile device experience with an iPad client. This allows you to separate experiences, they should be seamlessly integrated. participate in the meeting without having to run up to the board to contribute, providing a new means of natural interaction through I’m going to bet that even higher resolutions such as ultra HD will your personal device. The iPad client lets you participate in the become more important, especially as we have more affordable content collaboration portion of the meeting when you are in one large displays, higher network bandwidths, and more head-toof the Spring Roll rooms or when you are outside the rooms joining toe telepresence video experiences. There will be new touch and into the meeting through a regular telepresence or WebEx session. gesture technologies to improve input to mobile devices—this will greatly improve how we interact with mobile devices today The biggest challenge in creating Spring Roll was around user and with our broader collaborative environment. We’re going to experience simplification- we wanted to create an inviting have more sensors on mobile devices and in the environment to experience that was simple and easy to use and we wanted to hide help people interact more freely and naturally as we enter the the technology that was needed to deliver it. When people come world of the Internet of Things. Also, robotics will play a larger into Spring Roll they feel good and know they are in a designed role in providing natural communication experiences, as it will experience. Their eyes light up in the same way they did when help people have a physical presence in remote locations and they first saw HDTV and immersive telepresence. give them the ability to move around that remote location. The challenge behind all of it is not only to develop the technology, HSL: Final question: What do you see the future of but to drive it from a user experience first perspective. The telepresence and visual collaboration? future is bright, and all of these technologies are going to help SW: First of all, at Cisco the commitment to collaboration is very provide even better interactive collaboration experiences in the strong. We don’t want to just have people go into big expensive years ahead. TPO rooms and then be able to collaborate. We want you to collaborate when you’re mobile with your iPhone, iPad, Android device, or laptop, and still have a full collaboration experience. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Also, we’re looking at lowering costs to make this more accessible to more people. In terms of the broader industry and where things are going, something that we’ve shown with augmented collaboration is that if you do touch and gestures very well, you can have a more natural experience. Touch is what enables you to get that whole interactive experience. We’re actually integrating touch into our 26
Howard S.Lichtman is the publisher of Telepresence Options, president of the visual collaboration consultancy Human Productivity Lab, and a board director at Array Telepresence. He co-founded a company in 2001 that built visual collaboration environments with stand-up presentation, IP video over QoS networks, interactive whiteboarding, and large format data visualization. At the time, he was unable to even conceive of augmented reality, bring & fling, iPads, or Apps.
www.TelepresenceOptions.com