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"Virtual Bridge" Between London, Vienna Et Al.

Posted by Hemos on from the build-it-and-they-will...conference dept.

dr.matrix writes "Read in Heise (German) how Tholos Systems wants to create a huge outdoor 360 degree video conference between all european capitals, starting with London and Vienna." Pretty impressive technology, but the purpose is still a bit unclear.

8 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. The facts. by sebi · · Score: 5, Informative
    This is not a direct translation, but rather the gist from the original German article. Please forgive the shitty English.

    The first two cylinders are supposed to be installed in March of 2004. They plan to connect all European capitals by 2008. The plan is to have them feature views from other cylinders in the "best picture quality". Additionally people will be able to contact their counterparts at the other cylinder in "sound and picture"

    The cylinders seem to cost about two million Euro a piece. They plan to earn money by selling advertising. The advertising will be limited to a maximum of 13% "airtime". Since they plan to be on air 24/7 that translates to 192 minutes of ads per day. They will sell advertising time to "exclusive content-partners" to "not endanger the THOLOS concept" and stop any "dilution" through additional programmes.

    Inside the cylinder you will find eight HDTV-projectors, 22 microphones, 22 loudspeakers and three cameras. Networking is done via 100 MBit-Lines. To protect from vandalism the glass walls will be coated with a "special nano-structured anti-graffiti-protective-coating". And they want to hire security personnel to keep an eye on the expensive hardware around the clock.

    --
    Hank! White!
  2. "teleconference" clarification by the_pooh_experience · · Score: 4, Informative
    What it is is a circular building (see this link for the concept) that has a TV or projection systems such that the image is around the outside of the building. In the case of this article (I am assuming, as I cannot read German) is that the thing being projected is another EU city. In fact, this is a "teleconferencing" system, so there can be interaction. There is sound, etc...
    A run down of the technology (sparce as it is) is:
    • 66m2, 360 panoramic digital screen
    • 20 mega pixels - five times HDTV resolution high resolution video projection
    • built-in high-performance graphic system supporting text, video and 3-D visualization
    • digital audio, featuring Hypersound(C), a revolutionary directional sound technology
    It sounds cute. It is meant to bolster "pan-European identity"
  3. Wired News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    linky

  4. Web Cam on Steroids by bacon-kidney-pie · · Score: 5, Informative

    They have a similar thing here in Sydney in one of the tall buildings. When your going up your lift has a tv in it showing the person going down. Typically they will make rude signs at you and theres nothing you can do about it. There should be more of this. People take themselves far too seriously these days.

  5. Re:huh? by sebi · · Score: 3, Informative
    They plan to install two pretty big cylinders. One in Vienna, one in London. They are linked via a 100 MBit network connection. One will film a panorama in London and project it in Vienna. The other will, well, do the exact opposite. Apparently people standing in front of one will be able to talk to people standing in front of the other.

    Since I live in one of the two cities about to be connected this way and you seem to live in the other (judging from your URL) we will both see what it is like in May. I am just wondering how it will work once more than two cities are connected. Imagine being involved in an animated conversation with someone in Berlin only to be switched to Stockholm in mid-sentence.

    --
    Hank! White!
  6. There's an article about it by timbloid · · Score: 5, Informative

    here: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_830469.html?m enu=news.technology

    It looks pretty cool, and pretty useless at the same time...

  7. Wired article by moonboy · · Score: 2, Informative

    I submitted this last week with a link to the Wired article that can be found here.

    I think this is a wonderful concept because of the bad reputation that we Americans (and other countries as well) get because of our governments being essentially our "representatives" to the rest of the world. Also, distance plays a factor as well. I think that if we could have a "face-to-face" with the people from other countries, we could see that we are not all that different from each other. Certainly the language barriers still exist, but that can be overcome as well. I think this has a lot of possibilities.

    --

    Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
  8. This is a remake of the hole in space (circa 1980) by thbb · · Score: 3, Informative

    This project is a rework of the infamous Hole in Space project, dating back to 1980.

    This project consisted in linking together by audio and video two public spaces, without telling the passerby anything about the installation. At some point, bystanders would realize the link was bidirectional and started impromptu conversations between the two locations.

    By a funny twist of things, this project inspired much of the 1980's and early 90's work carried at Xerox PARC and the University of Toronto Telepresence project.

    These in turns nurtured a number of startups, such as PictureTel/Polycom, still a leader in videoconferencing technology.

    Notice that by the time, the technology was fully analog, and for having used it in the early 90's, I can say the link quality was far better than most current IP-based videoconferencing is today.