Welcome to the latest edition of TMCnet’s Telepresence Week in Review- where we highlight all the latest headlines related to high definition video conferencing from this past week.
First, personal telepresence provider Vidyo announced new executive appointments this week.
James Fairweather, VP Worldwide Channels, and Mark Reid, Sr. director of Engineering, join Vidyo from HP’s Visual Collaboration Business Unit, which Polycom (News
- Alert) acquired recently.
“The video conferencing market has matured; customers today are sophisticated and no longer willing to settle for expensive, inflexible, hard to use, legacy-based hardware systems,” said Ofer Shapiro, CEO and co-founder of Vidyo.
Another big name in the space, LifeSize (News - Alert), which is a division of Logitech, also hit the headlines this week with the announcement that Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) had recently recognized the company with the Latin America Frost & Sullivan Award for competitive strategy innovation in the videoconferencing market – which recognized the company’s ability to leverage competitive intelligence to garner a strong position in the video market in Latin America.
Also this telepresence news this week, Citrix Systems (News
- Alert) released Citrix GoToMeeting with HDFaces, which makes use of high-definition group video conferencing for a telepresence-like meeting experience using a Web cam and the Internet.
In more HD telepresence news, Technicolor (News - Alert), a global supplier of entertainment content announced it has delivered a custom-developed telepresence adapter to Comcast that includes an HDMI input and output, Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, RF4CE control, external USB and SD card slot, and an integrated external camera and microphone.
Based on Comcast’s plans to offer HD video conferencing to its subscribers, this newly developed adapter has been designed to specifically deliver high-definition video conference call capabilities through TV sets.
Finally, one market that’s increasing its use of Telepresence technology is Healthcare.
This week, Vidyo announced Ontario Telemedicine Network will use its platform to expand its current network and extend the reach of its telehealth services to patient homes and Specialists On Call said recently delivered its 30,000th emergency teleneurology consultation since the company’s inception in 2006.
That’s all for this week, be sure to check back throughout the week for all the latest in telepresence news as it happens. Until next week…
Stefania Viscusi is an assignment editor for TMCnet, covering voice and Voice over IP technologies. She also oversees production of TMCnet's e-Newsletters in the areas of Internet telephony and speech technology. To read more of Stefania's articles, please visit her columnist page.