A Globally Distributed EcoPanel with Al Gore

From VoiceCon Orlando 2008, Al Gore joins John Chambers for a discussion of the critical role innovation can play in mitigating climate change. The virtual discussion simultaneously addresses live audiences in London, UK and Orlando, and is hosted in Orlando by Cisco Chief Marketing Officer Sue Bostrom.

The key topics include: Latest observations of the effects of global warming and the impact of IT; how businesses can reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the use of new innovations; and how the technology industry can help create the most sustainable model for addressing global climate change. Using Cisco TelePresence, Mr. Gore participates from Nashville, TN, and Mr. Chambers from Cisco headquarters in San Jose, CA.

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Cell-phone as boarding passes

Continental Airlines will test a system that allows using a cellphone to download the boarding pass with a bar-code that can be scanned directly from the phone's screen. Train systems in Europe have used the system successfully for a while.

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5 Things to look for in a Telepresence System

Telepresence is hot: This week, Al Gore and Cisco's CEO, John Chambers, had a TelePresence presentation at VoiceCon addressing how to get greener in business. The bottom line is that TelePresence is getting all the hype these days. Here are 5 things to look for in a Telepresence system, to ensure that you get the best meeting experience:

1. High Definition Quality Video – It has to be realistic video that looks a lot like a real person, not a binay version of one. Look for scale of the other party and make sure it is real live scale and not a smaller (or larger) version of the person. Have the individual show you his/her wrist watch, you should be able to read it from your end.
   
2. Quick and easy to forget technology – when you are in the meeting, you should forget that you are in a Telepresence meeting in 5 minutes tops. It is supposed to feel like a real meeting, not a Skype call with a webcam.
   
3. No Echo – people tend to talk when others are talking. It's human nature to interrupt the other party. Make sure that there is no echo, reverb, or other annoying effect with the sound.
   
4. Spatial effects – if someone on the right opens a can of Coke, the sound should come from the right, not from the center of the room.
   
5. Not affected by outgoing speakers – if someone likes to move a lot and use hand gestures, these should come to the other end seamlessly, without any delay or effect on the video quality.

One OS or several OSs across your product line? – Which is better

After a long time since my last post; a comment by Juniper's founder about Cisco having too many operating system versions sparked my interest for the subject. I decided to do some research and thought, and came to the following conclusion:

"A single OS across multiple platforms shortens the product lifecycle of the entire product portfolio and is inversely proportional to it in adverse levels"

What this means is that as the product portfolio grows, having one Operating System is unfavorable for the customer who has to upgrade more frequently if he/she wants to stay current. That is, because the product lifecycle gets shorter and shorter as new products affect them. For example, if you have two products with one OS, then it is beneficial: it brings consistency, and helps to solve problems for both products at the same time. When you introduce a third and a forth product, that incorporates more variables that are prone to bugs; therefore new code needs to come more frequently. That is for the entire product portfolio because they are all running the same code. When you have one hundred products, all running the same code, a bug or issue found on one of those 100 product causes the other 99 to get a new OS as well, leaving your customer to update the OS more frequently.

In other words, it simply does not scale. You have to find the balance of how many versions you can have, to satisfy a reasonable update cycle for your customer.