It seems like a fight has started over the communication device on our desktops. Not the fight over voice – that one has already been fought and won time and again by the ubiquitous desktop phone, with some signs of the mobile handset providing any serious competition to its reign. What I am talking about is the fight over visual communications: doing video chat and video conferencing from your desk, wherever that is.

Here’s a list of the current contestants:

The Desktop Videophone

This is the easiest to think of – take the current contestants in the voice world and copy-paste into the video world. If you have a desktop phone, just add video to it.

If you need an example, the Grandstream GXV3140 IP Multimedia Phone is just that. It looks like a phone, it talks like a phone, but it also has video.

GVX3140 – a desktop videophone

Advantages?

• Easy to use with a very known physical interface – it is a phone after all

Disadvantages?

• Well, my phone is usually located to my right. Now, for a video call, I’ll need to shift my whole body to face its screen. Sounds like nagging, but what happens if the video call is actually a one hour long conference?
• Another issue is the size of the screen. 7-10″ displays will most likely be the case, which is too small for my taste.

The Downloadable Client

Next runner up is the downloadable client. After all, we all have a PC or a laptop on our desks. Usually quite a strong beast, with some horsepower inside. So why not slave it for the purpose of video calling? Here’s a little secret: we do it at work on a daily basis using our SCOPIA Desktop.

SCOPIA Desktop running on my laptop

Advantages?

• Should fit rather well on most modern PCs
• Allows to enhance the experience for a complete Unified Communications package
• Functions easily with the keyboard and mouse already connected and used (no need for a remote!)
• Doesn’t require to move your head from the monitor

Disadvantages?

• Won’t really give a top-of-the-line video quality (it depends on many parameters)
• Would slow down a lot of PCs out there to a dead crawl
• Takes up room on your monitor with the hassle of moving windows around during a call
• You need to install it, as well as take care of it
• The PC must be open, connected and running for it to work. My last call at work, for instance, is usually done while I close up the applications on my laptop, hibernate it, take it out of its docking station and get ready to go home – a no-can-do with a software client

The Embedded Monitor Terminal

We’ve had these for a few years, but now, our very own SCOPIA VC240 is changing this market – it’s a large PC monitor that seconds as a video conferencing unit, with a relatively low price tag.

As these things go, others will probably follow suite, especially when the initial reactions we’re hearing from customers are “wow!”, “get me one” and “I want more features”.

SCOPIA VC240 in a conference call

Advantages?

• It’s there, on the table, working as a monitor, so no additional space taken, no cables, no cameras, no nothing
• Easy to handle as part of a video communications network for IT managers
• Allows you to show your PC view mixed up with the video call for maximum productivity

Disadvantages?

• It costs more than a software client
• You can’t take it with you… – it’s a monitor
• Can’t replace an IP phone… there’s this that nagging need for a handset

The Mobile Device

The question can be raised – why not the mobile device? It does seem to replace the desktop phone in some places for voice calls, so why not video as well?

I’d say it is due to the issues that plague mobile handsets today, that doesn’t allow them to do video conferencing, even though they had these capabilities for several years already.

While they offer true mobility and an easy to use dialing scheme, they don’t really provide the necessary user experience: camera quality, processing power, holding position during calls, etc.

So Who Will Rule the Desktop?

I have no clue whatsoever…

If I had to bet, I would say the downloadable client or the embedded monitor terminal. But that’s just me.

Any thoughts on the subject? I’d really like to hear who’s your winner.

Last month I’ve stated that I don’t see visual communications done in software anytime soon. But then the question is when – when WILL visual communications be prominent in software solutions?

I’d like to risk it and come up with an answer that is a bit counterintuitive even to me: never.

Software is never going to be the path to go with visual communications. And why is that? Because as we get closer to a point in time, when the processing capabilities of PCs and laptops are adequate for video conferencing applications, we are also getting closer to the days when the PCs and laptops are going to fade away.

For those of you who came from a different planet and have just landed, here’s an update: Apple just launched the iPad. And while the feedback about it has been less than fanatic, it did bring about a discussion about the future of computing. Or more accurate, about the end of personal computing as we know it.

Some people don’t like the iPad for some reason

A few examples:

• Nancy Nally from WebWorkerDaily contemplates taking an iPad in her next travel as her main computing device.
• Gaming, which moved from Wii, Playstation and Xbox to the iPhone is now making its way to the iPad, at least that’s what a Slashdot user thinks. I tend to agree – gaming have already moved from PCs to computing devices.
• Fraser Speirs on iPhone Central explains how the iPad is suitable for all the people who are “PC-challenged” – there are more of those than technical savvy people…
• Ethan Nicholas, a guest poster on TechCrunch thinks his mom needs an iPad and not a PC – I couldn’t agree more. My sister, farther-in-law and neighbors should get one as well.

While the iPad might not be the best computing device, with all the bells and whistles it was rumored to have, it is definitely going to have its affect on the market (and on Apple’s bottom line). We are moving to an era of connected devices, where laptops and PCs just don’t make sense to most users. It’s not that these will die – they just won’t be dominant.

What does this mean to visual communications? That just like the rest of the applications, they will migrate to connected devices. You can call it software, but I believe they will get their hardware acceleration and will get embedded into the heart of the devices instead of being downloaded into them.

In a way, it means an end to the software clients.

Will that really happen? Probably not, but I’d say it does bring back the emphasis to embedded solutions when it comes to visual communications.

It is with great joy that I am writing the words above, welcoming to the RADVISION family new members, coming from the delightful city of Ancona.

Il Porto Di Ancona. (CC)

Yep, the word is out – we have acquired the intellectual property of Aethra, a video conferencing endpoint manufacturer and a long-time partner of RADVISION, as part of our end-to-end strategy.

I worked with engineers from Aethra throughout my years in RADVISION. As most of our industry, they were using our developer tools. I have always found the people there warm and friendly. Not that there’s any wonder here -after all, they are Italians…

But back to the acquisition —

We will now have a development center in Italy, one that will specialize in high-end High-Definition video conferencing room systems. This is going to be a great complement to our current array of video infrastructure and endpoints.

I’d venture to say that I see this as a great step forward, as now customers will be able to enjoy our end-to-end video conferencing solution – infrastructure, room systems, personal terminals and desktop clients. Not to mention our endpoint technology, that can be licensed to build your own communication products, which will work perfectly and seamlessly with all of these.

So – il benvenuto alla famiglia, RADVISION Italy!

We’ve had a chat the other day during lunch about the future of video conferencing (yes, we sometimes speak about work during lunchtime).

The issue that was raised is where, if at all, do we see telepresence in the future – what role will it play?

While I’d love to try and answer this question,  want to set the ground first, as I don’t really think there’s a good definition our there for telepresence.

So here are a few definitions of my own:

• A video conferencing system that costs 5-10 times more than any other
• A video conferencing system that comes complete with a nice (and rather expensive) wooden table
• A conference room that can only be used for video conferencing and for no other type of meeting whatsoever
• The high end of the high end of video conferencing
• A video conferencing system that will not be sold in more than a few hundred of units a year

In a nutshell, I think telepresence is simply the high end of video conferencing. It’s where companies put their latest advancement in technology in order to get the best user experience possible. That basically solves what it is (and what it’s not).

But telepresence comes with a huge cost – the system itself is ridiculously expensive, it takes up a large conference room – rendering it useless for any other types of meetings, and there are maintenance costs that are quite heavy as well.

The good news are that most of these technologies that are introduced into the telepresence products will find their way to the enterprise video conferencing market within a year or two.

And where is Telepresence headed? Well, I can definitely see them make a o 3D Presence soon. And from there? Who knows…

[This post is part of our Designing Hardware for HD series. Be sure to check it out!]

There are still a few things that I haven’t touched here, in this HW for HD series. One of them is the camera. In the next few weeks I’ll try to cover some grounds in this area. But before I dive in to the issues at hand, I’d like to get you up-to-date with the basics.

This glossary that I supply here will assist you when the time comes to deal with camera issues, especially if you’re not familiar with camera-related technologies and terms.

You might also want to look into the “How Digital Cameras Work” essay in HowStuffWorks or try Camerapedia.org while you’re at it.

CCD

CCD stands for a Charge-Coupled Device. While that says relatively nothing, think about it as the sensor that captures the light and converts it into a digital representation.

CCDs usually differ in their size, which dictates the amount of light they capture, the size of lens that you will need and the amount of power they will require.

Focus

Cameras can either have a fixed focus or an automatic focus.

A fixed focus camera is one which has a set distance in which the image it captures will look good. Such a focus will usually be the one used by webcams or cameras on personal video conferencing systems, where the user is located at a “known” distance from the camera.

Automatic focus cameras are those that can change their focus to differnet distances depending on what they are pointed at. These will usually be used by cameras located in conference roomes where people can sit in different distances from the camera.

Zoom

Zoom can either be optical or digital. It allows zooming into people in a conference room or zooming out to see the whole settings.

Digital zoom will usually be available on fixed cameras, while the optical one will come as part of a PTZ camera. Which brings me to the next term…

PTZ

Some cameras are fixed while others can move around. Those that can move around are called “PTZ cameras”, or “Pan-Tilt-Zoom

Cameras”, as they can pan and tilt (move up and down and to the sides) and they can zoom in and out – mechanically. PTZ cameras usually rely on motors to move, in which case they make a bit of noise, or they can use magnetic mechanism, which is way too cool to be cheap enough to use.

PTZ cameras are the standard for room-system video conferencing endpoints, where people would like to control where the camera is pointed.

If it wasn’t clear enough, PTZ cameras cost more than fixed ones.

Pixel Count

The “resolution” the camera is capable of. You are probably used to talk about 1.3, 5 or even 14 megapixels – that’s the pixel count – the amount of pixels that the camera’s sensor is capable of producing for an image.

The more pixels, the larger the CCD sensor will be, assuming the pixel size doesn’t change.

Pixel Size

A CCD sensor size is not only defined by the pixel count but also by the size of each pixel. And while intuitively, the smaller the pixel size, the larger the pixel count you can cram into a smaller CCD sensor – that’s not always a good thing: the smaller the pixel size, the less senstivity to light it will have.

Exposure

Exposure is the total amount of light allowed to fall on the photographic medium (photographic film or image sensor) during the process of taking a photograph. (from Wikipedia).

Usually, exposure is controlled by the shutter speed or the integration time in the CCD.

Gain

You can increase the CCD’s sensitivity to light. This is done by electrically amplifying the signal coming from the CCD. This process is called gain. Doing that causes the amount of noise in the captured image to increase dramatically.

Depth of Field

Put simply, this is the area in which the camera places everything within focus, without blurring information out of view.

Having only the relevant parts of an image “in focus” (i.e. within the depth of field) allows people to notice only what is relevant in a video call.

Backlight

Backlight is a real issue in video conferencing. It will usually manifest itself due to an open window in the room or fluorescent lighting in the back of the user. This will essentially “burn” areas within the image and make the whole setting a lot darker, taking out the details from the image.

In most cases, your users will simply need to change the settings – place the video conferencing system in a better location or just close the darn curtain. That said, some cameras will be capable of reducing the effects associated with back lighting, and this is something to consider.

Google now offers two separate operating systems:

1. Android OS – used by smartphones out there, ported by companies onto a bunch of other consumer electronic products including netbooks.
2. Chrome OS – a browser-based operating system, which essentially lives within the browser. Oh, and people are starting to think of placing it on netbooks as well.

Why would any sane company go and invest their resources on two operating systems that just… do the same?

Which OS would you choose to use – Android or Chrome?

Android Vs. Chrome

Let’s look at the difference between these two operating systems, as this might shed some light on what their capabilities are exactly. Before I begin, here’s a short disclaimer – what I know about these operating systems is what I’ve read on the web:

	Android OS	Chrome OS
Baseline	Linux	Linux
Visualization	?	Chrome browser
Applications development	Java	Web technologies
Applications infrastructure	Download from Android Market	Browse to web pages
Main concept	Monetize over downloaded applications	Provide cloud services

Some other things to consider:

• Both operating systems have built-in web browsers. The one in Android is used when the user feels like it; the one in Chrome is what you see at all times.
• Both operating systems are modified by the vendors who use them, effectively creating fragmentation. This is necessary as such vendors are embedding their own applications into the devices in order to create some differentiation from their competitors.

So Why Two?

For the life of me, I really can’t understand.

Android is quite capable of filling all consumer electronic niches for Google, so where does Chrome OS comes to play?

Couldn’t Google just add the missing pieces that they are pushing into Chrome and just place it in Android instead?

Wouldn’t that be easier for them and less confusing to us?

I’d really love to hear your thoughts about this one, as I am at a loss for words here.

This is a question that was frequently asked during our sales meeting this month. I’d like to try and answer it here.

In the last couple of years, we’ve had tremendous success with Windows Mobile – we’ve done a bunch of successful projects and had a few product launches. A lot of vendors who develop handsets needed our 3G-324M stack or some other product of ours to be integrated into their device, so life was good.

Something got broken the moment the iPhone came out. Windows Mobile wasn’t attractive any longer, and vendors where shopping around, looking for visualization and user interface technologies before thinking about signaling and communications.

Enter Android. The only true solution out there that is good enough for a handset vendor.

Why? Why Android and not some other Linux solution? Or Windows Mobile for that matter?

It’s Free!

Android is free. It’s open source, with a relatively permissive license (the Apache license).

This means that vendors who decide to select it don’t need to pay for it. It also means they won’t have any support agreement attached, so they are practically left on their own to deal with the development issues.

And while this is true for other Linux flavors for embedded and mobile devices, there are other benefits that come from the adoption of Android.

It’s a Communications Framework

Android is not just an operating system – it’s a full framework suitable for mobile handsets and other communication devices. For instance, in most other operating systems and Linux flavors you won’t get the following:

• Contacts application
• Calendar
• Built-in web browser
• Email

The fact that these, as well as other ready-made, built-in applications, exist there, out of the box (in the same manner they exist in Windows Mobile), makes it easier to integrate them into handsets without the need to shop around for additional components.

One disadvantage here, which exists in all other mobile operating systems, is that while it does provide a great communications framework, there are things that don’t come out of the box with it, which you will still have to license from third parties (and that’s what we’re here for).

The Application Store

Android is not merely an operating system – it’s a platform.

With its application store, borrowed straight from Apple’s headquarters, handset vendors can rely on third party developers to add additional applications to the phone and increase the value of their handset to the end customers.

Yes, it devalues the brand of the handset vendor. But it allows him to try and compete over market share in front of iPhone, and it gives the handset vendor the necessary infrastructure instead of the need to build it up from scratch, and that should not be taken lightly.

The Ecosystem

There’s already a large number of developers working on Android – pushing it into additional chips, developing applications on top of it, coming up with products that don’t even look like handsets but use Android, etc.

Where there’s a large, living and breathing ecosystem, there are less risks. Would you go today to invest in a LiMo based handset or would you select Android instead?

What Can Hinder Android?

There are two things:

1. Google

Google came out with their own Android-based handset – the Nexus One Phone. While Google might have in their best intentions the proliferation of this operating system to other vendors as well, the fact that they are now competing with these vendors might cause vendors who are using and adopting Android to look at other alternatives.

And while such alternatives don’t exist today, the void will be filled by others. Maybe even Windows Mobile with their upcoming version 7.

2. Fragmentation

Fragmentation seems to be the main issue. Google took the open approach for Android. As Chris Haseman points out (read the whole piece – it’s too good to pass):

“It’s not just a buzzword, it’s a real problem. Quite possibly it’s the problem that could sink the Android platform as a whole. While Android’s design might be geared towards the hobbyist developer, having to buy 50 handsets and validate your mobile app on all of them is real ordeal for the pros. As more devices with more screen sizes arrive on the market, maintaining an application is going to be a more and more exhausting process. This process won’t be made any easier as Google’s already loose grasp on the platform as a whole continues to loosen.”

[This post is part of our Designing Hardware for HD series. Be sure to check it out!]

In my previous post I’ve discussed on the requirements from an OSD engine. These requirements will affect the decision making of chip selection for the OSD. But there is another aspect that affects that decision and it is the software you will use for visualization – the OSD engine.

While I do not pretend to be an expert on GUI, I have seen various decisions made by our partners in that area, and I want to share them here with you. This list is by no means complete – it’s just a quick reference of some of the options:

1. Microsoft Windows Flavor

Microsoft Windows is not an OSD engine, but rather a fully fledged operating system. It comes in different shapes and sizes, but if you select it – you will get that OSD part that you need.

Here are the various flavors to choose from:

1. Windows – the one executed on the desktop. Usually an XP or the new Windows 7 just recently released. It is here for completeness rather than any real use, as it is a large operating system with too many components that you won’t be needing.
2. Windows Embedded – Microsoft also offers an embedded version of the above. It is smaller in size, but still rather large. It offers the same set of capabilities to select from with a lot of development tools that will make your life easier.
3. Windows CE – The smaller version of Windows, which is a radically different operating system from Windows itself. It offers a different set of features and is suitable for smaller devices.

In all cases, there will be a royalty fee to pay and not a small sum. Opting for Windows would probably make sense if you want the added value of the ecosystem it brings with it and the tools it provides out of the box (not necessarily related to the OSD).

2. Qt

Qt is a cross platform UI framework developed originally by a company called Trolltech, which was later acquired by Nokia. It is well known in the market and is very popular among developers.

You will be able to find it supported by most OSD chips that come with an Embedded Linux operating system, though it is not limited only to these.

This library has a proven track record with embedded products so it’s a sure bet.

3. Android OS

This one is a new option – why not repurpose the Google Android operating system for your product? While Android has been designed and meant to be used on mobile handsets, people are actually using it for a large variety of embedded devices.

My own opinion is that if you are developing a communication product, then Android might be the right choice for you.

The advantages?

• It’s open, with full source code available
• It’s got its own set of application store(s) and large developers ecosystem
• It’s integrated with a lot of (Google) services already
• It has its own address book and dialing paradigm already available

4. Browser Based

You can decide to build the whole UI within a browser. It makes for an easy solution for designing and implementing the UI with a lot of flexibility in changing the looks of the UI with minimal effort.

You will, however, find it quite limiting in the amount of visualization magic that you will be able to pour into it.

If you’re going this way, you might want to look at one of these options:

• ANT Galio suite – this includes a browser and a client for embedded devices. While they do seem to target IPTV, I am sure it can fit other embedded devices easily.
• Espiel’s Evo Browser – another option that started from IPTV and is now suitable for embedded devices.
• Opera Devices – Opera is known for their mobile and desktop browsers, but they are also suppliers of a browser for embedded devices.
• Firefox – if you have the time and the inclination, you might want to try and repurpose Firefox or its mobile cousin Fennec for your device.
• WebKit – another open source alternative is WebKit, which is quite popular today inside browsers – desktop and mobile alike.

5. Proprietary Library

There’s always the option of choosing some other solution, which is a bit less known.

One such solution which I’ve come by several times in the past is Bluestreak’s MachBlue Kit. This is a Flash based presentation engine that is used by set-top-box manufacturers. It can be suitable for a videophone device as well and it probably provides better flexibility and pizzazz than a browser based UI solution.

Have I Missed Anything?

If you know of other OSD engines or visualization packages that make sense – please send me a quick note about them or add them in the comments section below.

HolesInTheNet, a leading Hebrew technology blog, asked its readers what service they would not be able to live without (Hebrew only. Sorry!). They offered the readers the following options:

• Gtalk/Gmail
• Live messenger/Hotmail
• ICQ
• Skype
• ynet (a leading Israeli news portal)
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Walla (another Israeli news portal)
• YouTube
• Google Reader

So what’s so interesting about it? The results*. They reflect the views of the readers, a rather technology-savvy crowd, but I think they are important to note:

What service you wouldn’t want to live without?

For the purpose of this post, I’ll take the liberal assumption that Gtalk/Gmail really means e-mail, and that Live messenger/Hotmail really means instant messaging (and forgive me in advance, if you’re offended in any way).

The first thing to do with the results, at least for me, is to check what people are most interested about when it comes to different types of services. So I bunched up similar services and got this graph:

What type of service you wouldn’t want to live without?

What do we really care about?

• Our email
• Our news aggregators
• Our social networks

And this is no random order: we care more about our email than we do about our social information. We care more about the RSS feeds we’re following than we do about the messaging service we are using.

What does that mean to me?

If I’m a “Skype”, I would be very worried. The “Skype”s have no choice but to add innovative services. But if the service providers will follow, the “Skype”s won’t last. As we simply don’t care who provides our communication services, we just want the services they provide.

So yes, service providers need to wake up, but they probably have enough time to do so. To be honest, service providers have more to worry about from Google than from Skype, when it comes to communication services.

PS – you are invited to share your views in this poll (in English, this time):  what service do you feel you can’t live without:

* As this is a live poll, the results I was analyzing were from the time the poll had 181 votes.

It’s not every day that an opportunity falls in my laps not only to talk about something dear to me, but also to have a press release accompany it. And when opportunity knocks, who am I to say no.

If you haven’t noticed, we’ve published a press release about MediaTek selecting our 3G-324M stack for their system-on-chip solutions for handset vendors.

I thought I would share with you a short story of what went on behind the scenes…

A few years ago, I was the product manager of the 3G-324M stack. A major part of that job was flying to Asia, visiting handset vendors. In Taiwan, I was visited MediaTek once, and was told that they were the largest system-on-chip provider for mobile handsets out there. In 2009 they sold around 330 million chipsets for mobile handsets, which is a considerable amount.

Anyway, I went into their main building, and in the entrance they have a large wall, where they put on display the different handsets they have developed for their customers (who then sell these handsets under their own brand name). There were over a 100 different models on that wall – or so I was told. I didn’t have the time to actually count…

MediaTek was an interesting company for me. Unlike the rest of the Taiwanese market, who developed Windows Mobile based smartphones, MediaTek focused on feature phones – the mass market. This makes the operating systems that they use more limited in resources and capabilities than those used by smartphones. It also means that while their development cycle and integration efforts are larger, the end result is cheaper by comparison.

During the meeting there, we went over the usual spiel of our 3G-324M stack. What I remember interested them a lot was the type of operating systems our stack is capable of running on, and the amount of memory and processing power it requires.

While the meeting went well, the real sell was done later by our sales people and representatives in Taiwan. A few weeks later MediaTek decided to license our 3G-324M stack.

As they were an important customer to us, due to their position in the market, I asked them for a press release. It took time to get it approved, as they wanted to get closer to having a finalized product that supports 3G video telephony, but now that they do, it’s out.

The funny thing about this whole thing is that while 3G-324M should have been dead already, it is still going strong. What does it have going for it?

• It is the only viable video telephony solution available today for mobile handsets.
• It is mandatory by service providers in Europe and Asia.
• IP based technologies (IMS and LTE) are still not widespread enough.

So if you’re in the lookout for a 3G-324M solution – we have one for you. FYI – the current wave of requests we get is mostly around Android OS, and we already have a few wins there.