businessinfomag.uk
magazine
20
The best way to experience Oblong
Industries collaboration solutions 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 to interact with
content, just a handheld wireless wand.
Business Info
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.
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 visualizing and interacting with data.
It points out that many existing meeting systems are let down 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.
The future is oblong
COLLABORATION
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 Oblong 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.
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 huddle spaces, that you
might find in satellite offices and SMEs,
Oblong Industries has now 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.
Mezzanine collaboration sessions
are not restricted only to those with
access to a Mezzanine system. Remote
participants can join meetings via the
cloud using a Mezz-In app running on a
tablet or notebook. In the interests of
security, confidential meetings can be
locked to prevent access in this way.
Super flexible
There are plenty of screen-based
collaboration solutions on the market.
What makes Mezzanine different is the
ability:
n
to interact with content using
natural gestures (meetings can also be
controlled from a smartphone, tablet or
With the introduction of its new
Mezzanine 200 series, Oblong Industries
is bringing interactive, immersive, gesture
controlled, multi-screen collaboration to
small and medium-sized businesses.
James Goulding visited the company’s
London demonstration suite to find out more
OBLONG INDUSTRIES :
Mezzanine 200 Series
ISSUE 133
