Cisco(s csco) has bought a Danish firm called Assemblage for its skills in wrangling browser technologies like WebRTC for real-time collaboration that…
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Mail.ru chief Dmitry Grishin buys into Y Combinator grad Double Robotics
Double Robotics' iPad-eqipped telepresence robot is the first beneficiary of the $25m fund Grishin announced earlier this year. His cash will help Double ramp up manufacturing, which will be useful as early demand has been high.…
Read MoreHow to get a telepresence robot without NASA’s budget
Don't have the $2.5 billion budget that Nasa spent to design, build and launch the Mars Curiosity rover? For a fraction of the price you can virtually be in two places at once thanks to telepresence robots for every budget, including those using iPads or smartphones.…
Read MoreKickstarter effort turns netbooks into robots!
Got an old netbook? For a $225 Kickstarter pledge, you can turn a netbook into a telepresence robot, remotely controlling it over from a web browser or a smartphone. Over a web connection, you could even use the Oculus robot to speak with remote workers.…
Read MoreCisco pulls another Flip, stops selling Umi telepresence units
Cisco's move into living room video conferencing with its Umi product never got going, hampered by a high price and competition from free alternatives. Now Cisco has confirmed that it is no longer selling the consumer telepresence gear, though it will continue to support existing users.…
Read MoreVidyo to offer white-label video chat app exchange
Video conferencing startup Vidyo is known primarily for low-cost telepresence systems that compete with the likes of Cisco. But a set of APIs and an upcoming program through which partners can develop and exchange applications could give a boost to its white-label video conferencing business.…
Read MoreFuze Telepresence Connect hopes to solve interoperability woes
One of the major drawbacks with traditional room-based telepresence installs is that systems from different vendors are typically incompatible with each other. Video conferencing and online meeting provider FuzeBox, makers of the Fuze Meeting service, announced Fuze Telepresence Connect, which hopes to overcome these interoperability problems.…
Read MoreImmersive Communications: The future of video collaboration?
Telecom giant Alcatel Lucent's research and development arm Bell Labs is hoping to replicate the feeling of in-person, natural communication with a fascinating concept it calls Immersive Communications. It uses "mixed reality" to insert the video feeds of real people into customizable artificial environments.…
Read MoreHP Bows out of Video Conferencing as Polycom Buys Its Halo Biz
Video conferencing company Polycom is moving upmarket by agreeing to buy the assets of HP's Visual Collaboration business, including its Halo Products and Managed Services division, in a $90 million deal that will put Polycom in more direct competition with Cisco…
Read MoreCisco’s Big Consumer Telepresence Fail
Cisco's entrance into the consumer telepresence market hasn't gone as smoothly as it had hoped, so it introduced new, lower-priced Umi products and lowered the price of the service. Unfortunately, the new pricing will do little to make Cisco's consumer video chat offering into the mainstream.…
Read MoreHP Reminds Us that It Does Video Conferencing Too
HP today announced it's releasing a new line of high-definition videoconferencing products. These new Visual Collaboration products provide a solution that not only works via hardware installed in conference rooms, but can also be accessed on desktop and laptop computers.…
Read MoreEspressoHD: Industrial-Strength 1080p Telepresence at a Lower Cost
One way to bridge the gap between remote workers and aid remote collaboration is to invest in telepresence technology. These systems have traditionally been expensive, but that cost is coming down all the time. XVD Corporation launched its low-cost EspressoHD system in North America today.…
Read MoreCisco Umi: An HD Telepresence System for SMBs?
Yesterday, Cisco launched its consumer telepresence offering, Umi, which will provide high definition video calling in the home. At $599, plus an additional $24.95 per month for unlimited calls, it seems a little pricey for its target consumer market, but could it work for SMBs?…
Read MoreAt $599, Cisco’s Umi Telepresence Is a Non-Starter
Cisco rolled out its consumer telepresence offering this morning, unveiled under the Umi brand. The offering, which can be used with existing HDTVs, is available for pre-order today -- but the $599 price tag will probably be a little out of reach for Umi's target market.…
Read MoreCisco To Take On Skype With Consumer Telepresence
Cisco is looking to make its move into the consumer video chat market, with the introduction of new telepresence products for everyday users. But Cisco may have lost the consumer video chat battle before it's even begun; worse yet, it could undercut its own enterprise business.…
Read MoreEven Politicians Want to Use Skype
It’s rare to see our political leaders use common sense when making decisions, so when they do, we should celebrate. House Republican leaders led have reportedly sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking her to allow the use of Skype for video conferencing purposes.…
Read MoreVidyo Takes Telepresence to the Desktop
Vidyo, in a bid to widen its market share, is launching a line of video conferencing solutions priced under $1,000. The VidyoDesktop…
Read MoreVidyo Scores Monster $25M Funding Round
Just so you know, this is not an April Fool’s joke: video conferencing startup Vidyo — the same company that powers the…
Read MoreToday in Cleantech
Nike’s ditching carbon offsets for travel and is instead looking into teleconferencing. The company plans to have an additional 200 video conferencing…
Read MoreLogitech Takes on Cisco, to Buy LifeSize for $405M
Logitech, a Swiss maker of peripherals for computers and digital consumer devices, is buying 6-year-old Austin, Texas-based video conferencing device maker LifeSize…
Read MoreCisco Splurge Shows Video Conferencing is Hot
Cisco (s csco) today offered to buy Tandberg, a Norwegian company that makes video conferencing equipment, for $3 billion in cash, a…
Read MoreCisco’s Big Bet on Consumer Telepresence
The video phone holds an iconic place in the American technology lore. From black-and-white science fiction movies to Jetsons' cartoons, many of us were exposed to a futuristic vision of talking to far-flung friends and family through a video display. While consumers have embraced visual communication in the last few years, it hasn't been with video phones. Instead, most consumers video chatting today do it on a computer using an integrated webcam and popular software like Skype. Given this reality, is it far-fetched to start thinking about visual communication on the living room TV?…
Read MoreWeb Working in a Borderless World
What effect does having an international team have on the individual web worker and the team as a whole?…
Read MoreTelepresence: State of the (Affordable) Art
We’ve written before about some of the big-ticket telepresence systems – and our skepticism about their place in the average web worker’s…
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