Recently in Roundup Category

I'll be placing here links once in a while of news items and blog posts that I find interesting and are related to visual communications.

If you have items you'd like to feature here - just email me at tsahil@radvision.com.

Here goes:

• Garrett Smith asks if video conferencing is over-hyped on VoIP Insider - no it isn't. I'd say it is quieter out there than it should be.
• If you are new to video conferencing, then Carol Skyring has a good starting point for you - her Videoconferncing: The Basics. It comes as a new series of posts or an ebook.
• China Unicom is reported to have started a fixed line video telephony service - good luck!
• Jack Loftus brings a videophone concept from 1910 on Gizmodo - did anyone patent it?
• Michael Graves provides interesting information about immersive audio - not really video, but reminded me a lot of 3D video communications. It's in our future, but will take time to get there.

I'll be placing here links once in a while of news items and blog posts that I find interesting and are related to visual communications.

If you have items you'd like to feature here - just email me at tsahil@radvision.com.

Here goes:

• Once in a while, I bump into an interesting question on LinkedIn. This one, about face-to-face meeting versus Telepresence has drawn a lot of interesting answers.
• Scott Wharton on IP Business News talks about video at VoiceCon. He has a similar impression as Amir Zmora had about the show. It seems like 2009 is going to be the year of the video. (Yeah, yeah. I know you heard it before...)
• Robert X. Cringely discusses Susan Boyle's performance on "Britain's Got Talent". What I liked most was the bandwidth calculation - just think what will happen when video becomes a communication means for the masses.
• Unlike me, Rich Tehrani, TMCnet's President, believes that the year of videoconferencing came and went (2008, that is). I must admit he might be more than correct. Video conferencing is already here to stay, so why wait for t to be a part of our lives when to many it already is?
• Telepresence in space. That's what was on Slashdot this week. For those not convinced enough that video conferencing is going to be everywhere one day.
• Our own Sagee Ben Zedeff breaks the story of RADVISION's SVC-based video conferencing solution.

I am placing here a bunch of links, once in a while, of news items and blog posts that I find interesting and are related to visual communications.

If you have items you'd like to feature here - just email me at tsahil@radvision.com.

This time, the roundup is mostly about Vidtel.

They decided to give several bloggers a taste of their service, and the good reviews were not late to arrive:

• Jolly Mom reviews a videophone she received from Vidtel. This is definitely THE way to go for the consumer market. No "special" software, just a plain old telephone with a cool new video screen.
• jkOnTheRun received Vidtel's videophone as well, and has a video review of it.
• Ken Camp from The Next Web also wrote his review on the Vidtel's service. My takeaway is in the last paragraph:

Tomorrow, video will be a central part of our lives. It humanizes and personalizes our communications in the most revolutionary way since voice telephone calls. It brings us into closer contact with people who matter to us. It's how we'll share events in our lifestream.

Another gem that is still linked to Vidtel:

• Tom Keating covered the release of Polycom's VVX 1500 Media Phone, looking at it as a game changer. I see this as another videophone out there - a few already debuted during CES two months ago. This phone is also being part of Vidtel's latest offering.

I'll be placing here links once in a while of news items and blog posts that I find interesting and are related to visual communications.

If you have items you'd like to feature here - just email me at tsahil@radvision.com.

Here's a first batch:

• TELEPHONY Online that Verizon is planning to provide video conferencing service on their FiOS network "sometime this year". Bill Heilig from Verizon says "If you think about the full video-telephony program, we think it has to be on the TV, but it also has to be on the PC." I couldn't agree more that video telephony has to be on the TV.
• Garrett Smith, a VoIP blogger by heart, is now  to video (or a video believer). If you are not reading his blog - it's time you start. The fact that he is looking closer at video calling goes to show that video is catching on.
• Skype has released version 4.0 officially this month. It is video centric and consumer oriented. VOIP IP Telephony believes it's impressive. I tend to agree.
• NoJitter, another must-read, connects the way YouTube is being used by kids to the future adoption of video communications. Might be a bit far-fetched, but it doesn't hurt the fact that video calling is growing fast. I simply think that the technology has come along far enough for people to adopt it.
• IntoMobile the other day with a Juniper Research report that places video chat as the largest revenue generator for mobile adult content by 2013. This will probably be one of the main drivers for video chats on mobile handsets - these platforms are the hardest to use for video chats and their widespread use depends on adoption of video communication elsewhere. You can get the report at Juniper's site.
• Tim Belfall writes a short piece on telepresence. What interested me is that he doesn't see the adoption of video conferencing assisting mobile video calling. I tend to agree - there are a lot more showstoppers on mobile video calling than other visual communications.
• Gizmodo did a neat iPhone 4G concept, which revolves around visual communications. Worth a look, but still doesn't solve the technical issues of mobile video telephony.