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May 14/2007
Chicago Tribune - Business (by Jon Van, Tribune staff reporter)
VIDEOCONFERENCING GOES HIGH-DEFINITION; LONG-DISTANCE MEETINGS ARE BEING HELD USING FULL-SIZE IMAGES OF PEOPLE WHOSE EXPRESSIONS AND BODY LANGUAGE CAN BE READ
Photo: Jason Leigh, director of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at University of Illinois at Chicago, says, "We want to create a whole new way of interacting with computers." Tribune photo by Phil Velasquez
Hiring someone based solely on a phone interview or a videoconference meeting is something Hugh Morris said he has never done and never would.
Yet, Morris, executive director of a London-based business processing service firm, said that he has hired people he has never met in person but has interviewed using high-end video technology called telepresence.
"They really do appear to be across the table, looking life-sized," said Morris. "It's as good as meeting in person."
By using large flat-screen displays, cameras placed behind the displays and high-quality lighting and sound, several firms, including high-tech stalwarts Cisco Systems Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., are betting they can create video-based meetings in which it is possible to interact with people, no matter how far away, as if they were in the same room.
It's an old quest. Since AT&T rolled out its first PicturePhone four decades ago, videoconferencing has fascinated engineers and underwhelmed customers. This time, the engineers believe they have it right, producing full-size, high-definition images of people who look you in the eye as they speak and whose facial expressions and body language can easily be read.
Developed at universities such as the University of Illinois at Chicago a decade ago, telepresence is starting to reach its commercial potential. The industry has about 650 high-tech meeting rooms in place worldwide, although that number likely will rise to more than 10,000 within a few years, said Howard Lichtman, who operates the Human Productivity Lab in Ashburn, Va., a telepresence consultancy.
But a major hurdle for growth is cost. The lifelike telepresence rooms can cost as much as $250,000 to install and $8,000 a month to operate, compared with about $60,000 for the most expensive videoconference room.
Globalization and the increasing hassles of flying are building demand for an improved way to communicate across distances without traveling. Last year, companies worldwide outfitted 145,000 rooms for traditional videoconferencing, up 16 percent from 2005.
But, while falling prices of cameras and computers have put videoconferencing within the reach of almost anyone, it mostly goes unused because it feels artificial, said Marc Trachtenberg, chief executive of New York-based Teliris Ltd.
Companies such as Cisco, however, expect telepresence will transform the way people work. Since Cisco and HP got into the business, they have been building rooms at various locations to show prospective customers how they operate, Lichtman said.
"Three years ago, fewer than 2,000 people had ever seen a telepresence room," Lichtman said. "Now, the secret is out of the bag. It's moving beyond the early-adopter stage."
"People see these telepresence rooms that Cisco brought out and they're impressed," said Elliot Gold, who operates TeleSpan Publishing Corp., a market research firm that tracks the teleconference industry. "But, at $200,000 to $250,000 a room, they don't like the price."
High-end traditional videoconferencing rooms cost less to outfit, and that's more appealing to businesses, he added.
Cisco and others argue that telepresence rooms can pay for themselves. Companies can cut travel expenses and operate more efficiently because more people are in the office instead of on the road.
Sir Peter Walters, who first became acquainted with videoconferencing a generation ago when he was chairman of British Petroleum, said the telepresence technology encourages meetings among colleagues working at separate locations.
"I've never seen anything like it," he said. "It brings spontaneity to meetings. If you had to travel, you wouldn't bother. You'd make a call or send a memo, but with [telepresence] you can meet with colleagues face to face."
Telepresence technology was developed at academic laboratories such as the electronic visualization lab at UIC in the 1990s. University researchers continue to innovate, also having produced life-size screens mounted on robots that can prowl around an office holding conversations with colleagues. At UIC, researchers are developing a three-dimensional imaging system that does not require users to wear special glasses, seeking to provide a new level of realism to telepresence.
Marrying video-game technology with artificial intelligence will produce virtual-reality avatars that can sit and talk to a person very much like in a face-to-face conversation, said Jason Leigh, director of the Illinois electronic visualization laboratory.
"We want to create a whole new way of interacting with computers," Leigh said.
Even more daring conferencing innovations have some support.
A company based in San Francisco, HeadThere Inc., has developed a robot it calls the Giraffe.
The robot has a video screen to show the face of a person in a remote location who can steer the robot to wander around an office and chat.
"This more closely approximates true presence at the remote location," said Roy Sandberg, HeadThere's founder. The systems encourage spontaneity "because meetings don't have to be pre-arranged at special videoconferencing-enabled rooms."
While his firm has not begun selling its robots yet, Sandberg said he has had a lot of interest from potential customers.
Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster based in Silicon Valley, doubts that office workers will embrace the notion of colleagues stopping by to chat in the form of a robot.
"For years, researchers have had dopey robots with a screen showing your face," said Saffo. "You look like a dork. You might as well wear a 'kick me' sign on your back. This is a science project, not a product."
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