In the many blogs that I follow, much is being discussed about the use of virtual worlds for learning and game-based immersive learning. Now imagine if virtual world had not the avtars or characters, but real people interacting. Imagine what this would do to education and training. This isn’t a new story but I didn’t find this mentioned on the various blogs I follow.
Human Productivity Lab runs a story of Cisco’s “On-Stage” Telepresence experience at the launch of their Globalization Center East in Bangalore, India. During a presentation to the media in Bangalore, Cisco CEO John Chambers “beamed up” Marthin De Beer, Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology Group at Cisco, and Chuck Stucki the General Manager of the Telepresence Business Unit from San Jose. The photorealistic and life size virtual duo from San Jose then interacted with the Cisco CEO and presented to the audience in India. See the video of the presentation below.
Cisco in their demonstration used the telepresence display technology of UK based Musion and the Cisco Human Network that hooked together Bangalore and San Jose. This is done using a sheet of Musion’s patented, transparent Eye-liner foil that is stretched across the stage. The ultra high-definition image captured in San Jose and the images of the virtual humans are then transported over the Human Network to be displayed in Bangalore.
Will this change the way training and learning happens across the world? It sure should solve the problem of shortage of trainers across the world allowing one trainer to train many people at the same time.
Digital Video Enterprises (DVE) is another telepresence provider using similar technology for their seamless tele-immersion room.