TECHNOLOGY FOR CHANGE

Telepresence Goes Mainstream

John Jainschigg | Date: 06-04-09 | Comments

The next generation of room video conferencing puts you and colleagues face to face with life-size video images. But will anyone ever use telepresence for anything more than late-night Web camera chats?

The next generation of room video conferencing�dubbed "telepresence" some years back by AI pioneer Marvin Minsky�puts you and colleagues face to face with life-size video images and appropriately spatialized audio of your far-away collaborators (and of course, vice versa). It�s a very impressive trick and it comes at a very impressive price: from the high $30Ks to well over $300K for a fully equipped, 18-seat telepresence conference room�which, of course, can�t work unless someone springs for another similarly equipped telepresence room at the other end.

It�s the age-old problem faced by every generation of high-end video conferencing solution: high price = low participation = failure to achieve a positive coefficient of what Bell employee N. Lytkins in 1917 termed a "network externality," and which George Gilder re-coined years later as a Law, which he attributed to Bob Metcalfe, stating that the value of a network is proportionate to the square of the number of its users. Actually, since Metcalfe was a mathematician, he surely knew that the relation between the number of connections in a network of N nodes (n(n-1)/2) is only asymptotically proportionate to n², so Gilder probably made this up all by himself, but it sounds good, and you get the general idea.

To that age-old problem, an age-old solution is now being (re-)applied: International technology facilitators such as global outsourcing giant Tata are opening dozens or hundreds of "telepresence rooms" around the globe, and building multiprotocol bridges to connect telepresence products from different vendors. They hope to showcase the tech for non-blinding hourly rates and thereby kick-start the market, beginning the virtuous (as opposed to "virtual") cycle of increasing sales volume, greater "network effect" value, lower pricing.

Can this work, or is this destined, like prior attempts, to go nowhere? Is video conferencing�however it�s presented�just something people won�t do (except late at night via a $19 CCD USB cam, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say no more)?

I�m betting it will work, this time, for (at least) four reasons. See if you agree with me:

1) Desktop video conferencing is real, now. Laptops come with cameras built in. I was just talking via Skype video with my friend David Orban, the sensor networks visionary, who lives in Milan. I do this kind of thing every day now, as do legions of others.

2) Nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say no more: People know how to play with video conferencing now. And not just in dubious erotic ways. While I was speaking with David, he kept lifting up his (very patient and good-natured) dog to the camera and jiggling her gently so that her head would bob in time to his voice. And OK, maybe you had to be there, and OK, maybe this is funnier if you really like William Wegman. Whatever�it�s a far cry from the obligate, pull-up-the-tie seriousness of video conferences in years past. For further evidence of how casual video conferencing has become, adults may wish to smirk at this YouTube video demonstrating things not to do while the camera�s eyes are on you.

3) Globalization is entering its third phase. Given a certain level of emotional intelligence, people coming from within the same cultural framework can arguably hash out relationships of trust with minimal business travel. But more immersive tools may be required when representatives of different cultures seek to collaborate�perhaps particularly so when good old monoglot American isolationism confronts even more far-reaching outsourcing proposals from erudite, worldly, English-speaking post-colonial/post-Maoist Asia. I�m betting high-end telepresence gets a great deal of buy-in from the latter, in hopes of forging stronger relationships with the former (and impressing the heck out of them in the process�you know how much those telepresence rooms cost??).

4) This telepresence stuff is the bomb. It�s really different. Uncanny. You feel like you�re there. It�s like ... Second Life with less-attractive avatars. Whatever it is, it�s an experience completely distinct from old-style room video conferencing and, paradoxically, an experience of intimacy much closer to personal cams in its ability to transmit human warmth (however you choose to interpret that).

It will be interesting to see if this new/old strategy catches fire this time around. Thoughts?