Government Computer News
This presentation tool has the write stuff for the road
By John Breeden II
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The government’s most advanced spy satellite would have trouble beaming the contents of a whiteboard presentation in California to an office in Washington. But when the presenter uses eBeam, anyone with a Web browser can watch.
Electronics for Imaging Inc.’s eBeam presentation system would be equally useful in a Pentagon briefing room or a school classroom. It captures whiteboard markings in real time and distributes them via the Internet or an intranet. It can also store the files for later viewing and printing.
Box Score  | |
| eBeam Presentation system Electronics for Imaging Inc.; + Captures whiteboard pen strokes | |
As a presenter draws with eBeam’s erasable markers on an ordinary whiteboard or flip chart, two sensor pods record and transmit each stroke to a PC serial port for local viewing or over a network to remote browser users. The maximum sensing area is a spacious 8 feet wide by 4 feet high.
The sensor pods must attach firmly to the upper corners of the whiteboard. They have suction cups, and one of my test pods refused to hold for any length of time, but otherwise the physical setup was stable.
From the pods, a long cord connects to a standard PC serial port. EBeam’s maker obviously has mastered sending a wireless signal from the pen to the pods.
But why couldn’t the pods also transmit wirelessly to a receiver close to a PC? One reason might be the cost. The current setup is a pricey $599.
In my test setup, I had to extend the long cord from the pods across the ceiling to a computer rack so that no passers-by would trip. If you want to use eBeam for lots of presentations, I suggest you bring along duct tape.
Once the sensor pods are firmly secured to the corners of the whiteboard, the next step is to load four colored, felt-tipped erasable pens into four special writing holsters.
Be sure to match up the pen and holster colors. Why? Because the sensors know only that, for example, the green holster is writing something on the board. If you had accidentally loaded, say, the red marker in the green holster, those viewing the saved image on local or remote computer screens would see green marks, whereas the people watching the board itself would see red. For some presentations, color differentiation could be crucial.
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