Description :
We Live In A Distributed, Mobile World
Today we are more mobile than ever. We work in different locations and this places new requirements on our collaboration tools. Video chats have become quite popular whether you are using Skype or Google Hangouts but in the work setting this can be a real pain.
One problem with those platforms is that they do not give you the full view and immersive experience of actually being there. Multi-screen telepresence systems only work if you are in a dedicated telepresence room and cost a lot!
Now imagine a low cost solution that solves that problem and lets you remotely see everything in the meeting room on the devices you already own, from anywhere.
Meet Altia Systems - Experience PanaCast
Altia Systems is a venture-backed company based in Cupertino, California that has created the PanaCast solution.
PanaCast is a unique experience that enables anyone on desktop or mobile (currently the app is iOS only, but it was written in Ubuntu Linux, and Android, OS X and Windows 7 and 8 versions are in the works) to receive an interactive, real-time panoramic HD 200 degree Field Of View (FOV) video stream that replicates the human panoramic perspective.
It's a crowdfunded brand new technology that combines unique, patented hardware and state-of-the-art algorithms and software, all the way from optics, video capture and transport through rendering on client devices. It gives you the same control and human visual perspective of actually being in the meeting.
PanaCast - Lets You Be There From Anywhere
The PanaCast Experience helps connect friends and co-workers anywhere in our tele-connected world, giving everybody a panoramic human visual perspective in real time.
Unique hardware and software - integrated in this new ultra-low latency, multi-imager, panoramic-HD real-time video camera and integrated streaming server - create an immersive HD live video stream with a 200° field of view at an unprecedented price point. It's camera has six imagers, an SoC with dual ARM11 cores and a custom-built Multi-Imaging Video Processor (MIVP) along with an Ethernet port and a USB 2.0 port.
Mobile (Android, iOS) and PC (Windows, Mac) apps enable you to select your own individual perspective from the camera with the swipe of a finger, over Wi-Fi or cellular. Easily carried in one hand, PanaCast cameras can be taken or moved anywhere.
• Unique interactive video experience "to be there"
• Amazing ease of use on your device from anywhere
• Disruptive price points allowing BYOD
• Unique interactive video experience "to be there"
• Amazing ease of use on your device from anywhere
• Disruptive price points allowing BYOD
You can zoom in on the speaker, or zoom in on the whiteboard, all without affecting the views of other remote participants. You control what you see, just as if you were there.
PanaCast is priced below $700 and comes with free apps that give meeting participants the full immersive experience on the devices they already own : mobile as well as PCs. While it's compatible with existing video chat services, it'll cost $19.99/mo per concurrent user if you want access to Panacast's cloud platform. Altia Systems founders explain below the video conferencing system at DEMO Mobile 2013.
Check out the PanaCast app live to your iOS device or register your interest in ordering PanaCast Systems. To join a video conference, download the app. Once you have it opened and a cellular or Wi-Fi connection, scan the barcode or tap your phone on the NFC-enabled camera to join.
If you do not have a PanaCast camera, the app allows you to watch a short demonstration video of the PanaCast interactive experience.
*by andreascy*
