Posts filed under 'Technology'

Why the iPad Won’t Have a Front Facing Camera

I just wrote about why Apple won’t go for visual communications on their 27″ Mac display. But I also don’t believe they will be adding that front facing camera on the iPad either. There are numerous rumors regarding Apple’s plans in this area – some surfaced before the iPad was even introduced to the world and some state that the camera is there but hidden for the time being. Similar rumors have surfaced about the iPhone as well. My own (read more...)

By Tsahi Levent-Levi  |  March 11th, 2010  |  Filed under Clients, Technology
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Apple Won’t Develop a VC240 Clone

Here’s a thing I realized talking to a friend of mine the other day: Apple isn’t going to focus on visual communications in 2010 – not in their Macs and probably not on their iPads either. My friend, who is aware of our own SCOPIA VC240 product – a 24″ PC monitor with built-in HD video conferencing capabilities, told me that Apple’s 27″ all-in-one Mac monitor should probably add such a capability as well. He didn’t understand why they didn’t (read more...)

By Tsahi Levent-Levi  |  March 9th, 2010  |  Filed under Technology
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Video Conferencing: Death From the RFP

Most of the time we try to obey the 3 Bs: Better, Bigger, Bolder. This is also true for our marketing activities, as well as for our blog posts. But here’s a little secret I can tell you about our industry (and not just it): when it’s time to walk the walk, we are all slaves of the almighty RFP. As our industry caters mainly for large enterprises and government agencies, a lot of the deals out there are won (read more...)

By Tsahi Levent-Levi  |  February 25th, 2010  |  Filed under Technology
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What Is Telepresence Good For?

I’m not kidding here. What is telepresence good for anyway? And just to make sure we are talking about the same thing, here’s a reminder for one of my own definitions of telepresence: “The high end of the high end of video conferencing”. Sagee had a more thoughtful definition of telepresence, which is two years old. And since we’re already delving into nostalgia, here’s another doozy from around the same time – Moz Hussain, director of product management at Microsoft (read more...)

By Tsahi Levent-Levi  |  February 22nd, 2010  |  Filed under Technology
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The iPhone Opened Up The Korean Mobile Market

It seems like Apple has succeeded where others have failed – it has opened up the market in Korea for foreign handset vendors. And it has done so singlehandedly. Before the iPhone, most of the Korean handset market has been ruled by local vendors. The service providers in Korea had their own set of special specifications, usually written in Korean, making it harder for foreigners to participate in the game. One success story of a foreign company in Korea (read more...)

By Tsahi Levent-Levi  |  February 11th, 2010  |  Filed under Clients, Technology
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Desktop Video Conferencing Wars

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: (read more...)

By Tsahi Levent-Levi  |  February 8th, 2010  |  Filed under Clients, Technology
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Visual Communications Done By Software? When?

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 (read more...)

By Tsahi Levent-Levi  |  February 4th, 2010  |  Filed under Technology
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What Is Telepresence Anyway?

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 (read more...)

By Tsahi Levent-Levi  |  February 2nd, 2010  |  Filed under Technology
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Android VS. Chrome And Why?

Google now offers two separate operating systems: Android OS – used by smartphones out there, ported by companies onto a bunch of other consumer electronic products including netbooks. 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 (read more...)

By Tsahi Levent-Levi  |  January 28th, 2010  |  Filed under Technology
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Why Android?

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 (read more...)

By Tsahi Levent-Levi  |  January 25th, 2010  |  Filed under Clients, Technology
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