Comments on: HP's HALO: Now This Is Telepresence

By: nick gogerty

nick gogerty — Fri, 18 May 2007 20:01:42 +0000

sub perceptual latency in lipsync and voice causes people to trust each other less, which kills a lot of video conferencing see book “the media equation”. That being said, I have used the Halo system as a guest of HP’s a few times in the last few weeks. It delivers the goods, totally worth every penny. I hope they build out the network fast. I think HP should get all of their corporate partners o try it an start offering a network ASAP. great stuff.

By: Scott Johnson

Scott Johnson — Wed, 16 May 2007 16:46:52 +0000

The (very large) company that I work for has one of these systems. It’s reserved for execs only, and it was purchased to save on travel costs and to allow execs to be home more often. I hear that it’s very nice.

By: Rich

Rich — Wed, 16 May 2007 14:31:31 +0000

I recently did a story for CNET TV on the Halo. I think they're on the right track...can't wait for the cost to come down.

Video here:
http://www.cnettv.com/9710-1_53-27512.html

By: Jay Haynes

Jay Haynes — Tue, 15 May 2007 16:51:40 +0000

It does look amazing, but I bet you are right about the low seven figures number. I have been using iChat video (built in to every new Mac) almost every day for the past few months and it works amazingly well. If the two Macs iChatting are both Intel Core 2 Duos, the quality is outstanding. In fact, my colleague that I iChat with even mistakenly asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee after we had been online together for a few hours. It was a good laugh.

Apple's Leopard screen sharing feature with the new iChat (link below) will be very useful when it is released in October. And of course, it is free with every Mac and free to use for hours at a time. I only hope all of these emerging technologies bring the days of hour long commutes to an end.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/ichat.html

By: Trogdor

Trogdor — Tue, 15 May 2007 15:43:42 +0000

Funny thing … I don’t see any HP or HALO logos in those pictures. I’m a fan of 24 and have been impressed by seeing the Cisco Telepresense setup, but even moreso amused that the Cicsco logo is always seen at least once or twice whenever they use the setup. Product placement, after all.

By: Trogdor

Trogdor — Tue, 15 May 2007 15:40:10 +0000

Charlene mentioned that physical interactions (i.e. the hug she'd usually have witn her friend before a discussion) were out of the question. However, people will still try, and get very creative about it, too.

In college, I attended a half-hour talk where they discussed a similar kind of room. Their design (this was 2002) involved two square rooms, split by the diagonal, and you can only be in one half of the room. Via a similar setup of cameras and screens filling the diagonal wall, it seems as though you're in a square room, even though you can only move in half of it. AND, you see the other people, life-size.

In fact, they said that when people started really getting comfortable with it, it was rather common for participants to walk up to the screen from either "side", and then ... shake hands. Not in any physical sense, but to anyone watching, as close to it as you can get.

By: Lior Haner

Lior Haner — Tue, 15 May 2007 13:07:26 +0000

Hp is not the first to develop such a system. I have seen demos by Polycom of the exact same setup and real life looking screens (also intended for large corporations). It is very cool but its not new.

By: gzino

gzino — Tue, 15 May 2007 03:12:53 +0000

"...it strikes me as the kind of impractical idea - like the telephone or the automobile - that will end up changing the world someday."
Complete agree, John (I've experienced both Halo and TP) - it is the start of distance independent interaction - interactions in which distance between participants is no longer a critical variable. That's BIG.