Blog of a Long Distance Worker Tech

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Tag Archives: Skype

Living in the future… but do you want it

Video calls from a metal tube travelling at 600mph at 35000 feet… something that the military could do, but how about an ordinary joe?

Ever received or made a Skype video call to hwho was on an airplane? I can’t say I have, but the folks over at MSNBC have, in a news segment shot yesterday. Time magazine’s senior political analyst, Mark Halperin, called up the studio via Skype while in the middle of a red eye flight, and gave his opinion on Chris Christie’s speech through a video call. Not to mention, he was in the plane’s lavatory as well.

via Skype in-flight video call made on MSNBC TV | Ubergizmo.

I am impressed that something so amazing is available to us but I am personally not impressed as my time on planes should not be bothered by someone doing the “I’m on the phone Dom Joly from right next to me”. However I can see the creation of ‘phone booths’ next to to the toilets…

Dedicated Skype Phone from Asus Finally Out

Asus have finally gotten around to releasing their Skype videophone that I talked about last November.

“Asus has just released the first certified standalone Skype videophone which will make it easier for novice users to speak and see each other.

The device, called the EEE AiGuru SV-1 Videophone, is the first non PC product of Asus’s popular EEE family. The 1.6Kg videoconferencing tool comes with a 7-inch 800×480 LCD screen, an integrated VGA low-light webcam, a speaker and a microphone.

Asus Debuts Skype EEE Videophone at £220 – ITProPortal.com.”

My view has not really changed, particularly now we have the price confirmed. You can now buy Asus EeePC 701G devices for £159, a full £60 cheaper and yet the functionality is pretty much the same, with the advantage that the EeePC can be used for full Internet browsing and gives you 2 hours of use. In fact, you could also look at one of the Acer One netbooks or Asus 900 units for pretty much the same price. I know exactly what I would go for, but then I am not the novice.

Skype Starting to Dominate the International Long-distance pie

Skype has emerged as the largest provider of cross-border voice communications in the world.’

Skype Starting to Dominate the International Long-distance pie.

Certainly as a small business undertaking much of my service on customer sites in multiple countries, Skype has become a huge part of my mobile communications infrastructure, providing low cost international roaming phone services. Now with fring and the upcoming iPhone Skype application, we are moving to an ideal world of communications for those who operate away from home base.

Unfortunately for Skype, the large business world has not been listening to this conversion, and Skype needs to make huge inroads into the enterprise market to become truly ubiquitous – something that it is pushing forward with Skype SIP.

We will have to see how it goes.

Dedicated Video Conferencing

Asus_SV1 You may have used or heard of Skype, and some of you may have used its video conferencing capabilities, particularly for keeping in touch with back home when you are away for a trip. This is an excellent piece of software and is a default install on every machine I have. In addition to the software solution, there is a number of devices that make this more that a PC based solution, including connected USB handsets and the excellent WiFi based units but these do no justice to the video capabilities.

Well it seems Asus have released the Asus AiGuru SV1 and it has been given positive reviews in several places including Loic Lemur of Seesmic/LeWeb fame. It indeed looks the business but I have spotted both its flaw and an alternative solution also from Asus (and others!). The biggest flaw is that it costs $299 (which even at the most positive exchange rate would put it at £200+), which leads into how an alternative can be simply produced for a little less than that. The alternative, a more flexible one at that, is to look towards the very nicely priced EeePC 4G or EeePC 900s which would provide you with everything you can find in the SV1 unit for Video Skype plus all of the features of a netbook – and these range from £150 to £230 – and if you want to go to the Acer Aspire One units, these can come in from £179 to £230 as well. These all have Skype with Video support, and these all do so much more. These units also look a whole lot more portable than the Asus AiGuru SV1.

eeepc_black_left1

It looks like I have found an excellent use for my older (and less old) netbooks around the house – as dedicated Video conferencing terminals.