Sharp Aquos Board Wins Best Interactive/ Video Whiteboard Award

Grant's Perspective on ... the Sharp Aquos Board winning the best interactive/video whiteboard award from Commercial Integrator.

We have been installing a ton of the Sharp Aquos Boards and are not surprised to see that Commercial Integrator magazine announced that the Aquos Board won the best interactive/video whiteboard at InfoComm last week.

Here is a photo of a recent classroom installation of 3 interactive Aquos Boards.

Grant

Tupac Hologram and Telepresence

Grant's Perspective on ... Tupac hologram creator Musion Systems also creates telepresence holograms.

The Musion Systems and Digital Domain creative Tupac holograms at the Coachella 2012 Music and Arts Festival are driving tons of traffic to YouTube.

I also noticed that Musion Systems has been working with Polycom to produce holograms that are a part of a telepresence conference.

It is great to see them involved in both the entertainment world and business communications. 3D imaging is usually seen as an entertainment tool (that catches all the headlines) but I see the day-to-day use of 3D growing which will change the way we work.

Grant

Telepresence Foreshadowed On Star Trek

Grant's Perspective on ... telepresence foreshadowed on Star Trek.

I was surfing the other night and noticed that howstuffworks.com had a post on "Top 10 Star Trek Technologies that Actually Came True". The Tricoder was number one and telepresence was second on the list.

Below is a photo of a telepresence room. The idea of telepresence is that all participants feel like they are really meeting face-to-face. The photo below illustrates this. The people on the video monitor are at eye level with the other people in the room. The background and lighting are the same so they feel they are in the same room. The audio is ideally stereo and comes from the direction of the person who is on the monitor.

Beam me up Scotty!

Grant

Lounge to Videoconference Classroom

Grant's Perspective on ... turning a lounge into a videoconference classroom.

I was working on-site yesterday at a local university. We were going through the final audio tests making sure the system was working as planned. Everything went well and as I was ready to leave I surveyed the room and commented on how the room has changed in the last two months. What had been a "smoking" lounge (back when those types of things were allowed) has been transformed into a distance education classroom for nursing students.



It is amazing what positive change can happen with a little help from technology. Nursing students in Winnipeg will have some of their lectures delivered from a professor in Ottawa.

System Overview:

- HD Tandberg videoconference system.
- Additional Vaddio HD camera.
- Two 65" Sharp HD monitors (pictured) as well as an third ceiling mounted monitor for the podium presenter.
- Podium and wireless microphones for the presenter and a boundary microphone system for the students.
- Large 12" AMX touch screen panel that controls the videoconference system, audio system, DVD player, computer systems and room lighting. See the close up picture of the AMX touch screen below. Note that the picture of me in the top right hand is the HD camera focused on the podium.




I can't wait for the school year to start and see the technology in action. Another case of "Improved Communication from Technology Integration . . . and a lot of other cool stuff too !"

Grant