From Cisco Announces Video Conference for Home
The gradual emergence of Internet-enabled TVs, wider broadband availability and multimedia PCs has corporate tongues wagging. An estimated 45 million TVs will be Net-enabled by 2014, says ABI Research. By 2010, there will be 32 million U.S. households with the necessary broadband connection to support a high-quality home telepresence communication experience, according to IDC.
This is exciting. Here are some uses I can see:
- Parents talking to their children away from home (we use skype now)
- Grand parents staying in touch with grand-children
- Tuition – one on one without the student needing to move around (has the additional benefit of locking up the TV).
- Webcasting applications
Even though you can do many of these currently with an internet connection skype/oovoo etc., the convenience factor provided by TV to TV video conferencing are far superior.