Posted by Thiago Prado
Video conferencing is so powerful and efficient that there is a the possibility for many students to share a classroom with other students from the other side of the world as if they were in the same physical place.
One of the biggest problems when hiring new professors is to bring them to your own country. There are many reasons that the professor won’t move to your country but with the use of video conferencing tools the professor can give a lecture just by using a computer and a webcam.
Imagine a medical school student to watch a doctor/professor to perform a operation live even though he/she is miles and miles away. The power of video and audio interaction is amazing for the human brain.
Video conferencing tools improved its capabilities to let more than one person to collaborate and share info. Gotomeeting will release in the first quarter of 2011 its new version of the software that will allow up to 6 people to interact with each other using HD Faces technology without the necessary to buy new hardware.
In 2010 online education became a powerful and affordable way for students to get a degree. Even though the student will lose the interaction with other students and professors, the possibility of getting a degree increased dramatically. Even the tuition is much more affordable than regular university’s tuition.
Some students are concerned about getting an online degree due to not get as same treatment as a student that got a 0n-campus degree. This myth has been debunked after many major companies spoke about hiring very smart people with online degrees.
Even though the most benefits of video conferencing in the classroom relies on how effectively the instructor manages it, successful stories of its incorporation can be seen everywhere.
Here is come of the universities that offer online degrees:
University of Phoenix |
Kaplan University |
Strayer University |
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Devry University |
Ivy Bridge College |
Ashford University |
Posted by Thiago Prado
It has been a dream from geeks around the world the possibility of video conference with someone from the other side of the globe using just a cellphone.
I believe 2010 was by far the most productive in the video conferencing industry. Lots of new features were added to the existing softwares and improvements were made to make the softwares run even in slow machines.
The leader in video conferencing Citrix was one the companies that made more announces regarding new features in its products, specially GoToMeeting.
The giant software maker Microsoft is trying to catch up in the video conferencing industry with its product Microsoft Live Meeting. It has many benefits such as interaction with other products from the Office family but still needs many improvements in order to compete with products such as GoToMeeting and Webex.
With the grow of the video conferencing industry, many video conferencing products were launched in 2010 plus small competitor are increase their share in the market.
Big companies like Cisco are investing heavily in infrastructure in order to keep with the demand of video conferencing in 2011.
Besides all the improvements in the video conferencing softwares, scientists found a way to bring holographic videoconferencing to live with images transmitted from anywhere in the world. No one expected to have this type of technology before 2020 but it seems that it will be much sooner.
Posted by Thiago Prado
Even though video conferencing is much cheaper than 5 years ago, it’s still not for everyone. There are plenty of people that would never start using video conferencing because they think it is not as reliable as a phone call.
In the latest Entrepreneur magazine they interview two business owner to know what they think about it. The results were amazing.
In one hand, Victor Cheng (CEO Coach and Author) can’t live with it. Here is what he thinks about it. “I find that it’s just not as reliable as the phone. It’s plain and simple: I’ve made literally tens of thousands of phone calls, particularly on the landline, and it works like 10,000 out of 10,000 times. On video it seems like someone somewhere always has a problem.”
On the other hand, Adrienne Graham (CEO of Hues Consulting and Management and founder of Empower Me!) can’t live without it. Here is what she thinks about video conferencing. “I started using videoconferencing to save money on travel, break into the international markets and as a way to compete with bigger recruiting firms with bigger budgets”.
As we see in both opinions, video conferencing is not for everyone but it is one of the fastest and convenient way to communicate with people around the globe.
Posted by Thiago Prado
Technology that we only have seen in sci-fi movies are becoming part of our lives. One of the latest technologies that are being perfected to help business people to communicate with remote colleagues is video conferencing.
In the beginning of this month it was announced that a team led by SPIE Fellow Nasser Peyghambarian at the University of Arizona has developed a new type of holographic telepresence that allows the projection of a three-dimensional moving image without the need for special eyewear such as 3D glasses or other auxiliary devices.
Holographic videoconferencing will enable people to communicate with each other separated by thousands of miles as if they were in the same room, literally.
The technology is not fully developed, it has to be perfected to make it work properly. So far the image is too small and the refresh rate is two seconds.
The next step is to make the refresh rate faster and produce bigger screens to compete with the current 3D technologies in the market. Read More »
Posted by Thiago Prado
Citrix made a great move announcing HD Faces™, a high-definition video conferencing technology, for its products GoToMeeting®, GoToWebinar® and GoToTraining®.
The technology will feature the innovative new Citrix Multistream HD™, which will let the attendants to participate in a video conferencing with up to six people.
The total maximum resolution allowed for the session is 1920p x 960p, making it the first in the market. The technology will also allow people to view video and the presenter’s shared desktop in the same screen.
The software featuring the new technology HD Faces™ was previewed at Citrix Synergy Berlin and will become commercial available for the first quarter of 2011.
“When customers say they want video capabilities combined with web conferencing, they don’t mean tiny choppy images – but that’s what they currently get with the products on the market today,” said Bernd Christiansen, vice president and chief technology office of Citrix. “What they actually want is to see the details in others’ facial expressions just like in a face-to-face meeting or training session. That’s why it was so important to us to incorporate high-resolution video into our collaboration products. I’m confident that we’re the first to combine web and video conferencing the right way and – most importantly – to make it delightful for customers to use.”
“We’ve made it so easy and natural to work on a shared document in a video conference that I can’t imagine why any businessperson would ever want to use a standalone desktop video conferencing solution again,” Christiansen added. Read More »
