Steve Cheney started guest posting on TechCrunch. In one of his posts, he states that Apple’s strategy of vertical integration is ingenious: Perhaps the best example of this so far is FaceTime, Apple’s take on video-calling. FaceTime makes video-calling on the Android-based Sprint HTC EVO look silly, because the EVO awkwardly requires users to sign up and download a third-party app, then launch it every time they want to talk. Normal people simply won’t do this. Apple eliminated this friction
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By Tsahi Levent-Levi | July 12th, 2010 | Filed under Technology
[This post is part of our Designing Hardware for HD series. Be sure to check it out!] Video conferencing products, like most software products, are bound to need an upgrade: They need to interoperate with a large number of products – some of them unavailable or non-existent when the product was purchased. They are quite complex, which means that they bound to have bugs in them – some more annoying than others. Vendors often introduce innovative
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By Tsahi Levent-Levi | May 26th, 2010 | Filed under HD VoIP
[Laurie Berg wrote here first just before the IMTC 2025 event. When I heard her speaking after the event about how much she has learned from assisting in its organization, I asked her to provide some inputs here - who knows, after reading what she has to say about it, you might find yourself wanting to host such a virtual event sooner than you think...] Well, IMTC 2025 Virtual Forum has come to an end. What an event. I’ve done
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By guest | April 12th, 2010 | Filed under Technology
I guess my views on telepresence and its viability are quite clear already: it doesn’t provide enough value today, but it’s a great place for innovations (especially ones that cost gazillions to develop). So what kind of innovations can come out of telepresence in the future? 3D presence, for instance. Now 3D video conferencing is cool, but not futuristic enough for me. As with any other technological question, my old faithful place to look for a solution is science fiction.
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By Tsahi Levent-Levi | March 15th, 2010 | Filed under Technology
Just before the Jewish New Year, Houston Neal from Software Advice pinged me, asking for my opinion about a post he wrote – Seven Great Applications for IP-PBXs in the Medical Practice. In this post he outlines a few ideas on how VoIP can be used in healthcare. Specifically on how IP-PBXs can be combined with Electronic Health Records (EHR). I’ve written here before about mobile video telephony and health care, but this is a bit different. This time the idea is to mesh up one service with another. And there’s no better way to do that than using VoIP. The Internet has brought us the ability to link services together in ways impossible to do before (or at least too hard to be worth doing). And while Houston Neal gives 7 examples of such mesh-ups, I am sure that there are more to be found – in health care and elsewhere. It is also why I think that innovation in video conferencing (a VoIP thingy) won’t come from new features but from new applications – from meshing-up video conferencing with other services for specific needs – from the current mundane web conference with added video conferencing to playing an online game in the living room between multiple families around the world.
By Tsahi Levent-Levi | November 2nd, 2009 | Filed under Technology
I wrote my views on Modu when it launched its handset in July. Since then, I’ve had the time to continue and ponder about it, most recently during the World Innovation Summit 09 I attended here in Israel. One of the keynotes was given by Dov Moran – Founder, Chairman and CEO of modu – who provided his views on the future innovation in the mobile arena in general, as well as the innovation by modu. Basically, Modu’s innovation according
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By Tsahi Levent-Levi | September 21st, 2009 | Filed under Clients
[back from ITEXPO, Anatoli Levine writes about his observations from the show.] After writing last week about my expectations going to ITEXPO in Los Angeles, let me report back on what I think took place (yep, all subjective feedback). All in all, the event was well organized, as expected – TMC knows how to run a show. It was also well attended, considering the on-going (almost-ending?) recession. And the technical content was solid, with moving and exciting keynotes (especially the
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By guest | September 10th, 2009 | Filed under Technology
Video conferencing has been around for a long time – I should know, working at RADVISION for over a decade. It had been fun times, with lots of development and features being added. Then came HD – be it HD video or voice, increasing the quality (and experience) of a call dramatically. And then what? The hard truth is that for the last couple of years there is no real innovation in the video conferencing industry. Yeah, we talk about moving from 720p to 1080p, moving from 30 frames per second to 60 frames per second, adding another camera, adding more screens. But really – who cares? We’re marketing and selling the same solution we did years ago. It’s a bit faster, maybe a bit better, but that’s all. The margins companies make on video conferencing endpoints are diminishing yearly. The way to keep the pricing today Is to increase the video resolution. But there’s just so much you can charge for more resolution – we’ve already reached the point where it makes no sense to invest further. The open question to our industry is: what’s next? What will be the next innovation that will drive our niche and maybe, just maybe, bring it to the critical mass I’ve been told exist just around the corner.
By Tsahi Levent-Levi | September 7th, 2009 | Filed under Technology
