Cisco brings Umi telepresence to U.S. living rooms

Bangalore: Cisco introduced its consumer-level videoconferencing system christened as Umi telepresence which is designed for the living room. The new transformational home video communications system from Cisco consists of a set top box, a panning-and-zooming 1080p camera and microphone unit that sits on top of the HDTV, and a simple IR remote (which can control panning and zooming). The umi(you-me) effort, an outgrowth of Cisco's four years of experience in the enterprise videoconferencing telepresence market will be available at around INR26,500($599) along with Cisco's calling service costing INR1100 ($24.99) a month. Umi telepresence will be available in the U.S market by mid-November though people can place preorders. Verizon Communications, which has been running trials of the service, will offer it to its home broadband customers beginning early next year. Umi will use existing high-definition TVs and broadband connections, also works with Google Video Chat and is an equivalent of a video answering machine. People can leave messages for callers and receive video messages from people when they've missed a call. This can be viewed on the TV or on a Web portal. The service works best between two Umis because of all the video compression and decompression work done by the appliance. In addition to simply making video calls using a straightforward, consumer-friendly interface, the ?mi telepresence system can be used to record videos, then email them or upload them to Cisco's flip share, Face book, or YouTube. However, the mass market for this type of high-end product is probably far off since Umi competes against things that are free or much cheaper. With Microsoft, which will offer some impressive video conferencing tools with its coming Kinect camera and sensor add-on to the Xbox 360 at around INR 17,700($399) and an Xbox subscription of INR2700($60) a year, Cisco's new proposition seems to be prodigal. The need of a cable-quality high-speed Internet connection, say 3.5Mbps for the full performance of 1080p camera, leaves out some DSL customers. Also people have to create their own contact lists or borrow from their Google contacts, which will be a problem if they have lots of contacts on Skype, AIM or some other service. "I don't look at the price as being outrageous," says Gina Clark, a vice president at Cisco. With Oprah Winfrey to endorse the brand and a mall tour that'll offer umi taste tests at over 20 US malls beginning November 10, Cisco is all set to strike gold.