Government Computer News
The ‘I see you’ videoconference
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CREEPY ... IN A GOOD WAY: Polycom’s RPX RealPressence videoconferencing system is an entire room that provides eye-to-eye contact.
Videoconferencing has always been a bruised and battered technology, never quite living up to its potential. So with the RPX, Polycom left nothing to chance. RPX RealPressence is an entire specially designed videoconferencing room, with drop ceilings, projectors, cameras, ceiling-mounted microphones, the works. Yes, it costs money (more on that later), but for agencies in need of effective collaboration facilities, it truly creates the effect of being there, even if you aren’t.
During our visit, a group of us sat in tiered seating in Herndon and engaged in a multipoint videoconference with a similar roomful of people in New York City and a Polycom executive in Ohio. The two remote locations were beamed to us on a pair of massive screens (you can get 8-foot-wide or 16-foot-wide screens) with a camera tucked inconspicuously in the middle. The screens are curved just so, according to Polycom, in order to optimize the effect of being in the same room as the people at the remote locations. It works. And the bundled lighting is set up so there are no shadows cast on folks’ faces. It works, too. We really felt like we were in a room with the New York and Ohio people. Effective, and creepy.
“Videoconferencing improves retention in meetings by 40 to 70 percent,” said Barry Morris, Polycom’s vice president for federal markets, during our meeting. And in this scenario, we can see why. Yes these people were elsewhere and they were on a screen, but as we sat there, we became increasingly aware that they were looking right at us.
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