From the initial picture, I was expecting a homegrown alternative to Cisco's Telepresence which, is actually quite awesome, if not really really expensive.
What I got instead was an iMac and a monitor.
Generally use drops off (in favor of standard one-on-one or one-to-many videoconferences) after the novelty ends. Primarily because the fidelity sucks and there are better uses for a large monitor, like watching YouTube videos during lunch.
Yes, a Mac Mini to an LCD TV isn't the most thrilling of tech articles, but I've been very keen to hear experiences of people using these sort of cobbled-together from commodity hardware "ghetto Telepresence" setups.
Our needs (and budget) just don't fit with the more expensive all-in-one solutions. And I imagine the quality of the cobbled-together experience can vary wildly depending on the hardware configuration. So I was excited to read about a setup that is working well for someone.
But soooo nice.
Wouldn't it be cool to have one of those for every remote worker so they can roll around the office and find people they need to talk to/point the camera at whatever is needed. Plus you get a screen to do screen sharing onto.
-- Have someone bring a laptop with webcam into a conference room? (poor-man's anybots)
-- How to deal with whiteboards? Camera? Shared drawing tools? Not satisfied with what I've tried thus far. Would a 720p camera have enough resolution for whiteboards?
-- Making everyone work as if they were remote--campfire, webex, skype, etc., even if they are all in the same office?
(NB I'm moving overseas in a few months and I'm trying to figure out how I can work closely with my team from 16000 miles away)
I'm really surprised no one has tried to deploy some business apps for consoles, I'd imagine it'd take off pretty well as it'd be a great excuse for team building after hours.
