Recent launches point to the future of telepresence?

This week, Lifesize and LG teamed up to offer another step towards personal telepresence systems. They are combining Lifesize's video communication solutions with an HD LG television in an offering that at first blush one might think is aimed at the consumer market. Truly this new product isn't really for the family room, but for the home office. Inexpensive when compared to the more extensive room sized telepresence systems out there, the Lifesize/LG solution--similar to Polycom's HDX 4000 personal telepresence series, Skype's partnership with LG and Panasonic and the Cisco STB offering--represents a realization of one of the promises of video conferencing marketing materials. Work from anywhere while seeming like you are right there in the office.

As HD screens become more inexpensive and video processing technology adapts to improve quality of service over broadband connections, mobile workers will be able to take advantage of that almost there feeling that telepresence has promised to deliver. With price points within reach for smaller businesses, the idea that telepresence is just for multi-national corporations or just upper management will soon be a thing of the past.

For more commentary read our Ed Corner that introduces this feature....

Let's look at some of the other recent news related to this telepresence trend...