Telepresence World Preview Edition

EDITO R I A L

TELE P R E S E N C E W O R L D

A New Paradigm

We hope you enjoy reading the premier issue of Telepresence World—a new magazine featuring articles, updates, and news about telepresence technology and the array of applications for which it is and could be used.

Telepresence has the potential to radically alter how we do business, explore our surroundings, educate our children, and relate to the world around us. In the coming months we will be bringing you information about telepresence from authors that will include technology vendors, designers, physicians, corporate executives, lawyers, artists, and others who are currently utilizing or have fresh ideas on how to use this new, impressive tool.

If you are still unclear about what telepresence is or what it has to offer, please check out our “Telepresence 101” introduction that starts off our Feature Article section. In each issue we hope to present to you an interesting mix of topics designed to stimulate your own ideas on how the use of telepresence could fit into your long-term strategies and goals.

And, of course, don’t forget to plan now to attend the TELEPRESENCE WORLD

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Already physicians can perform surgery in front of students who are located thousands of miles away

Telepresence World 2007 Conference that will take place at the University of San Diego in California, June 4 - 6, 2007. The first conference of its kind anywhere, Telepresence World 2007 will feature dynamic speakers and stunning telepresence demonstrations geared towards executives and decision-makers like yourselves for whom knowledge is key.

Why Now? The current telepresence revolution reflects the confluence of several key rapidly advancing technologies.

The wide-spread deployment of high-speed internet with improved bandwith, the development of powerful computer processors and high-definition video, and advances in compression technology and digital cameras have all contributed to the successful evolution of a new, interactive meeting model that is far superior to the traditional (and underwhelming) “TV & camera on a cart” method of video conferencing. At the same time, a number of external factors have also come together to

promote the revolution: the spiraling fiscal and environmental costs of travel; the need to balance work with personal life in an increasingly chaotic world, and the realization that the missed “opportunity cost” resulting from time spent waiting at the airport, on the tarmac, and even for a taxi, is counter-productive.

Don’t Start the Revolution Without Me The implications of this new technology are staggering already physicians can perform surgery in front of students who are located thousands of miles away (and even take questions in the operating room); Hollywood directors can go over storyboards with staff in a London studio without leaving their offices; and private investors in New York can have an impromptu meeting with brokerage administrators in Arizona by popping into one of several public “TeleSuites” available at the venerable Waldorf Astoria.

Industry leaders such as Cisco, Hewlett Packard, Polycom, Destiny Conferencing, Teliris and others have invested large amounts of time and money into product research and development. All are committed to improving, perfecting, and standardizing the experience for broad implementation. Their efforts have not gone unnoticed--Business Week recently proclaimed Cisco's new TelePresence system one of the best new products in 2006.

In 1899, HG Wells published When the Sleeper Awakes, a novel about civilization 200 years in the future. In it, he envisioned a new paradigm for communicating with the global populace: all over the world myriads of myriads of people, packed and still in darkened halls, will see you . . . .And you will hear their shouts reinforcing the shouting in the hall. . . And there is an optical contrivance we shall use. . . You stand in a very bright light, and they see not you but a magnified image of you thrown on a screen--so that even the furtherest man in the remotest gallery can, if he chooses, count your eyelashes.

In this and subsequent issues, through case studies and in-depth articles, Telepresence World will show you that the future is now...

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FEATURE AR TICLE

Telepresence 101 Just the Basic Facts, M’am A simple, generalized definition of “telepresence” might read: A human/machine system which uses advanced communication technologies such as high-speed internet, high definition video and audio, and large displays to produce a realistic interactive experience with other users or objects in a remote environment.

The applications of telepresence are numerous and varied.

Systems can be used for: conferences and meetings; explorations of hostile, inaccessible, or distant environments; remote operation of robotic machinery or tools; distance learning; and entertainment, to name a few.

This brief description, however, fails to convey the immersive quality of a true, well-designed telepresence encounter. The key to producing such a realistic experience lies in telepresence’s ability to provide the necessary perceptual feedback cues that we humans require to mentally process an event as natural and multi-dimensional. Until recently, attempts to simulate such experiences were unsuccessful due to technological limitations.

The Origin of the Species Video conferencing, though imagined by scientists and

authors for over a century, was first introduced at the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing, New York. Its futuristic quality immediately caught the public’s eye and, in that same year, Dick Tracy gave up his famed 2-way wrist radio for a 2-way wrist TV. The 1978 deregulation of the airline industry in the United States undoubtedly contributed to the rise of multinational corporations during the 1980s. Decreased travel costs facilitated collaboration via face-to-face meetings among executives from many different parts of the globe. Nevertheless, traveling was found to be time consuming, arduous, and risky and so other communication modalities were eventually explored.

Early video conferencing systems of the 1980s were prohibitively expensive (a 1982 system by Compression Labs cost $1000 an hour to operate) and used vast amounts of resources. By the late 1990s, wide-spread proliferation of the internet and developments in computer technology reduced implementation costs, allowing video conferencing to gain a foothold in the corporate world. Since then, continued improvements in processors and cameras have led to the widespread availability of personal video conferencing packages such as Microsoft’s NetMeeting and CU-SeeMe. T E L E P R E S E N C E WO R L D

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promote the revolution: the spiraling fiscal and environmental costs of travel; the need to balance work with personal life in an increasingly chaotic world, and the realization that the missed “opportunity cost” resulting from time spent waiting at the airport, on the tarmac, and even for a taxi, is counter-productive.

Don’t Start the Revolution Without Me The implications of this new technology are staggering already physicians can perform surgery in front of students who are located thousands of miles away (and even take questions in the operating room); Hollywood directors can go over storyboards with staff in a London studio without leaving their offices; and private investors in New York can have an impromptu meeting with brokerage administrators in Arizona by popping into one of several public “TeleSuites” available at the venerable Waldorf Astoria.

Industry leaders such as Cisco, Hewlett Packard, Polycom, Destiny Conferencing, Teliris and others have invested large amounts of time and money into product research and development. All are committed to improving, perfecting, and standardizing the experience for broad implementation. Their efforts have not gone unnoticed--Business Week recently proclaimed Cisco's new TelePresence system one of the best new products in 2006.

In 1899, HG Wells published When the Sleeper Awakes, a novel about civilization 200 years in the future. In it, he envisioned a new paradigm for communicating with the global populace: all over the world myriads of myriads of people, packed and still in darkened halls, will see you . . . .And you will hear their shouts reinforcing the shouting in the hall. . . And there is an optical contrivance we shall use. . . You stand in a very bright light, and they see not you but a magnified image of you thrown on a screen--so that even the furtherest man in the remotest gallery can, if he chooses, count your eyelashes.

In this and subsequent issues, through case studies and in-depth articles, Telepresence World will show you that the future is now...

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FEATURE AR TICLE

Projected Impact of Telepresence Technology on Greenhouse Gas Emissions In his 1896 article "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon the Temperature of the Ground" (Philosophical Magazine 41: 237-76), Swedish scientist Svante August Arrhenius, speculated on the effect of fossil fuel combustion on earth’s climate. Arrhenius, winner of the 1903 Nobel Prize for his work on electrolysis, was not too concerned about the consequences, stating that the ensuing “greenhouse effect” would “allow our descendants, even if they only be those of a distant future, to live under a warmer sky and in a less harsh environment than we were granted.''1 Over 100 years later, with world population surpassing 6.5 billion, the impact of global warming and efforts to reduce anthropomorphic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—mainly carbon dioxide (CO2)—have become two of the most important and controversial issues facing our planet today.

The Trouble with CO2 Atmospheric carbon dioxide allows light from the sun to reach earth’s surface but traps the reflected infrared radiation as heat. Ideally, the amount of solar energy that reaches the earth should be equal to the amount of energy radiated back into space, leaving ambient temperature roughly constant. Increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide trap more heat, which disrupts the balance and leads to elevated temperatures.

The earth, however, is a highly complex system of carbon sinks and sources and a great deal of debate surrounds what, exactly, is responsible for the 0.4o—0.8oC temperature rise recorded over the past century. Some scientists consider the current warming trend to be within the range of natural variation and the result of solar, geologic, and orbital cycles. But many more scientists now

place the blame on human activities that produce high levels of CO2 emissions, including industrial processes, power generation, transportation, and agriculture. They warn that if the current trend continues, global temperature will rise between two and six degrees Celsius over the next 100 years.

Although this might seem like a small increase, the impact of global warming will be far reaching and life-altering: accelerated glacial melting will affect coastlines and ocean currents, influencing habitats and altering disease patterns. The economic ramifications of global warming will also be very significant, although where there is crisis, there is also opportunity.

The Business of Being Green Environmental awareness in the government, corporate, and private sector has lead to new policies, practices, and business models that emphasize resource conservation and sustainable technology. The goal of sustainable, or “green,” business is to maximize resource efficiency, while minimizing waste and pollution, in order to cut costs and reduce environmental impact.

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In 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), acknowledged the importance of reducing industrial GHG emissions to prevent global warming when it suggested global stabilization of emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997, a follow-up amendment to the UNFCCC, assigns stricter mandatory targets for the reduction of GHG emissions by developed countries for the post-2000 period. Countries will have a certain degree of flexibility in meeting these goals, including the establishment of an international emissions trading market, which assigns credits/allowances to industries based on established emissions caps. These credits can be bought or sold based on actual GHG production. The Protocol, which went into effect February 16, 2005, has so far been ratified by 166 countries, with the notable exceptions of the United States and Australia.

As a result of the Kyoto Protocol, an increasing number of corporations, even those headquartered in countries that have opted out of the initiative, are beginning to realize that resource efficiency and conservation practices are more than just ethical and regulatory considerations—they are necessary for financial stability.

Man-Made Sources of Carbon Dioxide The main sources of carbon dioxide emissions can be grouped into three major energy-use sectors: building maintenance (heating, cooling, lighting, air filtration), transportation, and industrial processes.

Emissions reduction in any of these sectors can be achieved through: • Improved technology. Examples: using more efficient emissions filters; developing cleaner fuels and alternate energy sources • Emissions mitigation. Examples: increasing carbon sinks by planting more trees or restoring wetlands • Behavioral modification. Examples: encouraging people and businesses to set their thermostats lower or higher, purchasing hybrid cars, taking mass transit, reducing travel

The Potential of Telepresence to Reduce CO2 Emissions Video conferencing has been around since the first AT&T picture phone appeared forty years ago but until recently, the experience has been less than satisfactory due to unreliable and slow connectivity, poor video quality, and inadequate audio. Many organizations that have the traditional “TV on a cart with a camera” video conferencing setups report that they use it less than 15 hours a month.

The new telepresence technology, which makes use of large, high-definition screens, life-size images, high-speed broadband connectivity, fluid motion, and superb audio to provide as close to an “in-person” experience as possible, promises to dramatically increase the popularity of remote TELEPRESENCE WORLD

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video collaboration. Already, telepresence providers such as Hewlett Packard, Destiny Conferencing, and Teliris are reporting customer usage as high as 120 to 275 hours a month. In addition, the number of installed “telesuites” (dedicated, custom-designed areas that are optimized for this type of video collaboration) is steadily increasing.

Telepresence vendors Destiny Conferencing/TeleSuite, HP Halo, MedPresence, Polycom RPX, Telanetix, and Teliris currently have 313 locations installed or on order.2 There is no doubt that increased usage of telepresence—a consequence of both improved technology and behavior modification—will reduce the need for corporate travel.

This revolution in how business is conducted will lead to significant cost savings, improved efficiency, and greater opportunities for the creative exchange and synthesis of ideas. Telepresence will most certainly reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the transportation sector, and possibly the building maintenance sector, as the need for new hotels and conference centers decreases.

In the United States, approximately one-third of total greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to automobile, air, train, and bus travel.3 Travel Industries of America (TIA), reports that in 2003, business travel comprised nearly one-fifth of all U.S. domestic trips.

Two-thirds of these work-related trips were taken for the purposes of consulting, client service, or attending a convention, conference or seminar. Tandberg, another global leader in visual communications, recently published a study entitled “Assessing the Real Impact of Business Travel” that details the business-related travel habits of their European clientele. The Tandberg study reports that as a result of using their telepresence systems, customers have reduced the need to travel for business by one-fifth. However, many agreed that more wide-spread deployment of telepresence technology could reduce their need to travel by up to one-third. If one-third of all business trips related to consulting, client service, or conference attendance in the United States could be replaced with telepresence, it would represent a two percent reduction in travel overall, with corresponding reduction in CO2 emissions. Data collected by the United Nations in 2002 indicates that the United States is responsible for approximately 25% to the world’s carbon dioxide production. Therefore, the potential reduction of GHG emissions on a global scale is enormous (see separate automotive case study, sidebar).

Going Forward It is difficult to assess how such a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions would affect future temperature shifts on a global scale.

However, most environmental organizations agree that the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is immediate and severe if we hope to avoid

Potential Reduction of Automotive CO2 Emissions in the US Through the Use of Telepresence: A Case Study In 2003 (the last year with complete information), the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported that Americans traveled approximately 2.9 trillion miles domestically by all modes of transport. According to the US Department of Transportation, business travel to a destination over 50 miles from home comprises 16% of all travel in the US, with 81% of business trips taken via personal vehicle; 16% via air; and 3% using trains or buses. Using these percentages, we can easily calculate that the total business travel by car in the US during 2003 was approximately 376 billion miles.

As mentioned in our main article, the Travel Industry Association of America reports that two-thirds of these work-related trips were taken for the purposes of consulting, client service, or attending a convention, conference or seminar. As we also reported earlier, Tandberg indicates that their customers could reduce travel for these purposes by up to one-third if telepresence technology were more widely deployed.

If we extrapolate Tandberg’s findings to our own automotive case study, we can see that it might be possible to eliminate

125 billion business travel-miles ever year. By using one of the many personal “carbon footprint” calculators available on the web,4 we can show that it is possible to prevent, conservatively and barring improvements to gas consumption and automotive technology, up to 48.2 billion metric tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere every year.

In 2003 (the year of our case study), per capita emission of CO2 in the US was 19.8 metric tons. Furthermore, the US population in 2003 was approximately 283.2 million13 making the total amount of CO2 produced by the population of the United States in 2003 5.6 trillion metric tons.

A reduction in emissions of 48.2 billion metric tons of CO2 represents an approximate one percent decrease in total US CO2 emissions. The United States contributes approximately 25% of the world’s carbon dioxide production so when measured on a global scale, this reduction represents a decrease of about 2.5% in CO2 emissions world-wide from the use of a single technology. If enterprises around the globe made comparable use of this same technology, the cumulative effect would be tremendous.

world-wide climatic changes, melting ice sheets, coastal flooding, species extinction, and economic chaos.

Businesses that choose to embrace green technologies will most assuredly fare better financially than those that do not.

The concept of emissions trading as put forth in the Kyoto Protocols has already fostered the development of numerous exchanges such as the European Union Emission Trading Scheme, which is the largest multi-national, greenhouse gas emissions trading consortium in the world. It began operation in January 2005 and enjoys the participation of all 25-member states of the European Union.

Market activity is expected to increase significantly as companies commit to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. As the cost of implementing new green solutions decreases, companies can profit by selling increasingly valuable GHG credits to other businesses that need them. Contemporary and future government regulatory regimes and tax incentives, such as the law that President Bush signed in 2004 allowing companies to depreciate capital expenditures more quickly, including equipment used for broadband deployment (one of the requirements of telepresence technology), will make environmental responsibility more financially attractive. Conversely, there will also be a cost associated with environmental indolence. Recently, after a speech by environmental advocate Al Gore in Brussels, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said he would introduce a new carbon dioxide tax for packaging that would penalize manufacturers who release CO2 into the atmosphere. Other countries will undoubtedly follow this example as they look towards the future.

In November of 2006, Teliris became the first telepresence provider to have their current family of offerings—VirtuaLive—certified by The CarbonNeutral Company (TCNC) to help reduce the “carbon footprint” of those who utilize VirtuaLive for meetings, rather than travel. The Carbon Neutral Company is an organization that works with increasing numbers of business and governmental entities to reduce and mitigate their carbon dioxide emissions, signifying a growing awareness and willingness by corporations, governments, and consumers to address the problem of global warming.

It is evident that the use of telepresence technology has the potential to reduce GHG emissions substantially, but it also makes financial sense from travel-cost, resource, and regulatory perspectives. Corporate leadership should be considering the implementation of green strategies now if they are to position themselves favorably both fiscally and environmentally in the coming decades. Telepresence should definitely be on their short list of solutions.

References 1 Task Force for Ozone Reduction Strategies, The History of Air Quality, Environmental Institute of Houston website, 2006.

2 Lichtman, Howard S. Telepresence, Effective Visual Collaboration, and the Future of Global Business at the Speed of Light; Whitepaper, Human Productivity Lab, 2006 .

3 Pew Center on Global Climate Change,. Arlington, VA 22201 4 The Cool-it Carbon Calculator (http://www.cool-it.us/index.php)

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A BR IE F H ISTORY OF

Telepresence

By Howard S. Lichtman The Human Productivity Lab

Until last year I frequently referred to telepresence as the “best kept secret in telecommunications.” While 2006 saw telepresence gain international prominence with the launch of HP Halo, the Polycom RPX, and Cisco TelePresence, the technology stretches back to 1993. Telepresence has been “in production” for a number of Fortune 500 clients since at least 1999. Early adopters of the technology such as 3Com, Cigna, AOL, and Lazard have been enjoying a level of usage and end user satisfaction far above what could be achieved with traditional videoconferencing for a number of years. What follows is a timeline, albeit brief and partial, of the major mileposts of the industry. I welcome your additions to this timeline—please email me at HSL@HumanProductivityLab.com with your suggestions.

1914

1956

1964

1969

Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone by Victor Appleton is published in the United States.

AT&T Builds the 1st Picturephone Test System

AT& T unveils its Picturephone at the New York World’s Fair in Flushing, New York.

The AT&T Picturephone introduced.

Mod Set

II is

1993

1994

1995

Fall 1993 - TeleSuite is founded by hotel developers David Allen and Herold Williams.

The Anthropomorphic Robot Head (ARH II) is developed.

D i Designed d by b the h Transparent T TTelepresence l R Research h G Group, The ARH II’s goal was to simulate the human head, in terms of both anatomy and size (in other words, it was anthropomorphic and anthropometric). As a result, it was particularly suited to telepresence applications, where the user was immersed in a remote location to such an extent that a feeling of remote presence was felt. The ARH II was tethered to a virtual reality helmet or head mounted display (HMD), from which the user received visual feedback from the ARH II's twin cameras.

June 1995 - Digital Video Enterprises (DVE) is founded f d d as Videotronic Systems and patents the Transparent Telepresence Podium Display

September 2005 – Human Productivity Lab (HPL) & Wainhouse Research Whitepaper: Emerging Technologies for Teleconferencing and Telepresence is released.

November 2005 – MedPresence is founded by David Allen and Brian Kinne.

December 12th, 2005 – HP and DreamWorks announce Halo with the installation of 13 Halo Suites installed at AMD & PepsiCo. The partnership productizes one of the three telepresence solutions developed by DreamWorks for their Virtual Studio Collaboration initiative. The initial cost is $550,000 per Halo Studio and $18,000 per month, per studio domestically and up to $41,000 per month in network challenged developing countries such as India.

October 2005 -- Teliris deploys first GlobalTable in India.

2006 January 23rd 2006 – Public unveiling of MedPresence Conference Room at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona

May 22nd 2006 – Polycom enters the telepresence field with the announcement of RPX, a suite of telepresence solutions and service offerings made available through an OEM partnership with Destiny Conferencing. g

March 20th 2006 – Cisco CEO John Chambers publicly acknowledges telepresence initiative in Newsweek.

August 2006 – Human Productivity Lab publishes Telepresence, Effective Visual Collaboration, and the Future of Global Business at the Speed of Light.

May 16th 2006 – Digital Video Enterprise releases its first bundled solution: The 40” Executive Telepresence System that comes integrated with LifeSize Communication’s High Definition Camera and Codec.

October 2006 - Teliris launches 4th generation family of telepresence offerings, VirtuaLiveTM (replacing GlobalTable) and deploys first telepresence site (VirtuaLive™) in Bejing, China.

October 23rd, 2006 – Cisco Systems launches Cisco TelePresence--the result of over two years of research and development--with an advertising campaign that includes full page promotions in the Wall Street Journal, primetime television advertising during the World Series, and even product placed guest appearance on the FOX network’s hit crime drama Vanished! Cisco announces the single screen CTS-1000 executive systems at a cost of $79,000, with the three-screen CTS 3000 group system priced at $299,000.

October 23rd, 2006 – Cisco announces AT&T and Verizon Business as the first Cisco certified network providers.

AT&T will offer Cisco’s enterprise customers their global IP-Multi Protocal Label Switching (MPLS) network which prioritizes video packets for uninterrupted delivery, as well as integration capabilities for design, deployment and service management.

Fall 2006 – Verizon announces that their MPLS private IP network is available in 115 countries, and that they are trialing Cisco TelePresence over their Ethernet offerings

2001 Early 2001 -- Telanetix is founded in San Diego, California, by Rob Arnold, Bob Alford, and Thomas A. Szabo.

2002 January 2001 -- Teliris is founded with Marc Trachtenberg as CEO

October 2001 - Teliris deploys the 2nd telepresence GlobalTable production solution for Pearson LLC connecting New York and London.

Teliris launches first End-to-end Service Provider Model / VNOC (London based) with 99%+ SLA guarantee

2003 February 2003 - Bob Metcalfe, the founder of 3Com, predicts that video traffic on the Internet will eclipse both voice and data traffic in by 2010 – 2013.

May 19th-21st 2003 - Teleportec and TANDBERG help CLSA, a major finance house based in Hong Kong, to host what is, at the time, the world's biggest-ever Internet Protocol (IP) videoconference, connecting over 200 business people from Europe, the US and Asia over a three-day period. The virtual forum was organized to replace the CLSA annual investors conference planned for Hong Kong, which was cancelled because of travel restrictions in Asia due to the respiratory infection SARS.

2004 Summer 2003 – The DreamWorks Virtual Studio Conferencing Solution goes into production.

October 28th 2003 – TeleSuite launches the 1st network of publicly available telepresence meeting centers connecting TeleSuite Systems at The Waldorf-Astoria in New York, The Savoy Hotel in London, and the Ritz-Carlton in Phoenix, Arizona.

January 2004 Dr. Ann Earon publishes: Interactive Telepresence: A Review Teliris introduces InfiNET, the 1st purpose-built MPLS telepresence network September 2004 The first mention of Cisco’s Telepresence Business Unit hits the Internet.

2005 April 2005 – Telanetix ships first Digital Presence System.

June 2005 – Wired Magazine publishes The DreamWorks Machine on DreamWorks Virtual Studio Conferencing Initiative.

July 2005 – Wired Magazine officially declares telepresence to be “Wired.”

1997 Spring 1997 – TeleSuite installs Tele-Dining System in six Hilton Hotel locations: The Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, The Capital Hilton in Washington, DC, Merv Griffin’s Beverly Hills Hilton, the San Francisco Hilton, the Atlanta Hilton & Towers, and the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago.

1999 July 1999 – Semetech deploys the 1st TeleSuite group telepresence solution between Austin, Texas, and the San Jose Hilton in San Jose, California, to support an industr y initiative connecting Semetech with consortium members in Silicon Valley, California.

Late 1999 – The 1st telepresence distance education classroom is deployed and taught by The Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona in Tucson using a Distance Learning TeleSuite in Tucson and a TeleSuite rented from 3Com in Santa Clara, California.

November 1999 -- Mycroft (Teliris) deploys 1st production GlobalTable Telepresence Solution at Lazard with full Multipoint capabilities.

Late 1999 – Teleportec is founded by Duffie White in Manchester, UK.

Late 1999 – Digital Video Enterprises signs the 1st license agreement with Exovision for the “Eye Catcher” and builds the 1st true high-definition telepresence solution for a major investment banking firm.

2000 January 2000 – VIRTUE, the VIRtual Team User Environment initiative is launched to “develop the innovative technology necessary to produce a convincing impression of presence in a semi-immersive teleconferencing system.” The initiative is a consortium effort between British Telecom (BT), Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, Sony Broadcast & Professional Europe, Technische Universiteit Delft, Heriot-Watt University, and the Heinrich-Hertz-Institute Fuer Nachrichtentechnik Berlin E.V. &Co. KG .

April 2000 – TeleSuite installs two group telepresence systems for 3Com, their 1st enterprise telepresence customer, between Hemel Hempstead in the UK and Santa Clara, California

2007 November 2006 – Teliris VirtuaLiveTM offering becomes the 1st certified telepresence solution in the world by The Carbon Neutral Company to reduce their clients’ carbon footprints

December 13th, 2006 – Verizon Business announces that they will be offering the Polycom RPX to their enterprise customers coupled with Verizon Business' intelligent Private IP network and ethernet services.

January 8th, 2007 -- Polycom acquires Destiny Conferencing Corporation, a privately held telepresence solutions company headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, for $47.6 million. David Allen, president and CEO of Destiny Conferencing comments that "Through this acquisition, Polycom not only gains core intellectual property, but inherits key telepresence customer relationships with organizations such as Capital One, AOL, and Deloitte & Touche.

January 3rd, 2007 – HP Halo Collaboration Solutions and TANDBERG, a global leader in visual communication, announce an alliance to make their respective telepresence and video conferencing portfolios interoperable. HP and TANDBERG will pursue a development program that will allow TANDBERG’s industry-leading standards-based video conferencing systems to operate on the HP Halo Video Exchange Network (HVEN), which powers the Halo experience and enables full interoperability between HP Halo and traditional standard-based video conferencing.

January 2007 -- Telepresence World Magazine, the first and only publication that deals exclusively with telepresence technology and its applications, debuts online at: http://telepresenceworld.idigitaledition.com

June 4 - 6, 2007 -- Telepresence World 2007, a landmark summit on the emerging technologies of telepresence, presence, and unified communications, takes place at the University of San Diego, CA.

January 2007 -- TANDBERG releases their telepresence solution Experia.

Experia is designed to adapt to multiple environments and interoperate with other standards-based video systems, thus expanding telepresence to a wider market.

It is evident that the ROI and benefits of telepresence enjoyed by the early adopters is being shared widely and that telepresence is quickly becoming the industry standard when it comes to virtual collaboration. The traditional videoconferencing providers and carriers have finally arrived at the party and are accelerating R&D, investment, media attention, and interest among the rest of the Global Fortune 5000. With 2007 only a week old we already have one major industry announcement with at least one more biggie set to drop in the upcoming week.

2007 is already shaping up to be one hell of a year!

Resources: 1. A History of Videoconferencing Technology http://myhome.hanafos.com/~soonjp/vchx.html Howard S. Lichtman is the founder of the Human Productivity Lab and Pow-Wow Networks. He is a technologist and consultant with specialties in Telepresence and Visual Collaboration, Organizational & Personal Productivity and Sales Model Optimization.

Author of Telepresence, Effective Visual Collaboration and the Future of Global Business at the Speed of Light (2006) on the emerging telepresence industry, Mr. Lichtman was also a contributing author to Emerging Technologies for Teleconferencing and Telepresence (2005). Mr. Lichtman is a frequent commentator on telepresence, videoconferencing and effective visual collaboration and his writings on and analysis of the industry have been featured by Reuters, Pro AV Magazine, Killer App Magazine, and CFO Magazine among others.