Technology Reseller v07

01732 759725 26 COLLABORATION The future is oblong to interact with content, just a handheld wireless wand. Technology Reseller visited the Oblong Industries demonstration suite in fashionable Clerkenwell to see how the company’s Mezzanine technology can create more engaging meetings and improve collaboration between remote offices. There, the meeting room is kitted out with a Mezzanine 600 series collaboration solution with a shared workspace spread across three screens in front of a U-shaped array of desks. There is also a traditional analogue whiteboard and a secondary display, called a digital corkboard, that can only be seen by people in the room. The installation is completed by separate cameras for capturing the whiteboard and meeting participants; infrared tags on the display bezels that track the gesture wand used to control sessions and manipulate content (larger installations use ultrasound technology); and separate servers for the Mezzanine collaboration solution and Perception gesture control. This is a classic meeting room set-up, typical of the dedicated Mezzanine rooms that all customers have. But because each system can support up to 36 screens and multiple systems can be daisy-chained together, there is the capacity to connect 100s of screens in much larger bespoke configurations. This makes Oblong technology popular for war-rooms and control centres, as well as meeting rooms. Mezzanine 200 The typical Mezzanine room set-up clearly has quite a high physical and financial footprint, despite its ability to be used with generic screens and video codecs. So, for smaller meeting rooms, including team and huddle spaces, that you might find in satellite offices and SMEs, Oblong Industries recently launched the Mezzanine 200 series. This more affordable offering supports dual-screen configurations and, in addition to the bezel-mounted infrared gesture tracking system, can be controlled by touch. It also gives users the ability to annotate multiple streams using touch, including graphics, live video and video feeds of analogue whiteboards in other locations. Annotations can be saved and delivered to the workspace for later reference and download. With more than 45 million small and medium-sized meeting rooms worldwide, according to Wainhouse Research, the launch of the Mezzanine 200 series (and The best way to experience Oblong Industries collaboration solution is in person. Failing that, you could always watch the 2002 film Minority Report . In the film, Tom Cruise famously interacts with on-screen data, using gestures to zoom in and out, pitch and roll graphics, open and close files from multiple sources and move content, with a swooshing action, between displays. This technology developed by Oblong Industries founder John Underkoffler seemed futuristic at the time. Now, it is in use in businesses across the globe. And you don’t even need special gloves Call recording is essential for organisations involved in financial services, as it enables compliance with new MIFID2 regulations Oblong Technologies has introduced a one-box reseller kit for its new, entry- level Mezzanine 200 series, making it easier than ever for integration partners to sell and install the company’s interactive, immersive, gesture-controlled, multi-screen collaboration solution. James Goulding visited the company’s London demonstration suite to find out more about the technology Immersion therapy Oblong Industries is calling on organisations to meet the needs of employees – especially Generation Z and Millennials – by installing collaboration systems that provide a new, immersive method for visualising and interacting with data. It points out that many existing meeting systems are let do n by passive engagement, which occurs when employees are not sufficiently able to interact with shared content, or by technical delays that occur when blending disparate information sources. In surveys of US professionals at this year’s InfoComm and Enterprise Connect events, 50% of respondents cited these drawbacks as obstacles to collaboration. Oblong Industries adds that while the tools and technologies used for collaboration remain virtually unchanged, Generation Z and Millennials are used to multi-tasking while engaging with information from multiple data sources and would benefit from a more immersive experience. Two thirds (66%) of respondents agreed that immersive collaboration technologies that utilise spatial, multi-dimensional or interactive components would help companies overcome complex business challenges. Half of respondents said better collaboration and sharing of resources were the main reasons to upgrade or replace systems. More than one third (38%) plan to replace existing tools within the current fiscal year, with a further 25% intending to augment their existing collaboration systems. Of those who plan to upgrade, more than 60% anticipate investing in technologies geared for smaller meeting spaces or huddle rooms.

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