Video Conferencing

We may still not have light sabers or faster-than-light spacecraft, but one other piece of Star Wars technology now looks like it may be on the horizon: 3D holographic videoconferencing. This week researchers from the University of Arizona, Tucson, unveiled a holographic system capable of transmitting a series of three-dimensional images in near-real-time – a significant step towards the live transmission of life-size, full color, holographic video of people or other objects. Read More

The rumors of a tablet from Research In Motion (RIM) have turned out to be true with CEO Mike Lazardis announcing the company’s PlayBook tablet at its annual BlackBerry Developer Conference. Described by RIM as a “professional-grade” tablet, the 7-inch device will be running the new BlackBerry Tablet OS created by the recently acquired QNX. It boasts BlackBerry integration, out-of-the-box BlackBerry Enterprise Server compatibility and security features designed to appeal to businesses as well as true multitasking, gaming and multimedia capabilities. Read More

Microsoft Corp has announced its new LifeCam Studio webcam kit with 1080p sensor and high-definition video. It is the first time Microsoft has offered a 1080p sensor on a webcam, which the company states is 2.2 times larger than most webcam sensors on the market. However, to gain the most out of the 1080p HD recording capabilities, you will need to buy commercial video software which is not included with the kit. Read More

For obvious reasons, texting and email is a preferred method of communication for many deaf and hard of hearing mobile phone users. But as convenient as texting can be, it isn’t always the most reliable form of communication – messages can take a while to arrive and short messages can easily be misinterpreted. To address this problem University of Washington (UW) engineers are developing the first device able to transmit American Sign Language (ASL) over U.S. cellular networks. Read More

About a year ago, HP began working on a ginormous touchscreen display for their PR firm’s Manhattan offices. The resulting product, called the Wall of Touch, was such a hit that it has found its way into the workplaces of other select clients, with more on the way. Ironically, despite its name, one of the things that makes the Wall unique is that users don’t have to actually touch it. Read More

Nokia has teamed up with Sesame Street to create an interactive reading experience that can involve grandparents and grandchildren no matter how far apart they may find themselves. The Storybook research project melds the tactile and visual pleasures of reading a real book with video conferencing technology which allows distant relatives to take an active part in a child's literacy development. Read More

At the risk of sounding antiquated, it doesn’t seem so long ago that a face-to-face business meeting involved one or both parties having to jump on an airplane. Teleconferencing helped a little but video conferencing certainly changed the way we do business - although the expense often meant that it was used sparingly. HP has just introduced new videoconferencing software that it claims is not only high-definition and offers live-real-time collaboration, it is also affordable and has no subscription fees. Read More

Full HD video conferencing has been available for some time - provided you can afford to spend over $20,000 on a product like Cisco's TelePresence 500. Until now that is. FaceVsion's FXexpress Pro is an ExpressCard-based hardware accelerator with an HDMI input, capable of encoding and decoding 1080p H.264 video at 30 frames per second in real-time for 1080p video conferencing - and it's available for under $200. Gizmag's Tim Hanlon talked to Facevsion at IFA 2009 - click through for the video. Read More