Over the last few years, a revolution in teamwork and technical support has taken place in the installation portion of our industry. Once network ports began appearing on the equipment that we sold, remote administration, remote monitoring and remote support all became possible, but it really has taken a couple of years to convince clients […]

Lutron Electronics today announced that its RadioRA 2 and HomeWorks QS systems will use the cloud-based Lutron Connect Bridge hardware and the new a Lutron Connect App. This will add features to any RadioRA 2 and HomeWorks QS home like AppleWatch notification, Geofencing, HomeGlance dashboard for mobile devices, support for Apple and Android Widgets, Nest and Honeywell Wi-Fi thermostat support and free remote access to the […]

Those who know me know I like to talk. I’ll leave that thought there for now. Recently, in a business discussion I was asked “Why do you answer every question with a story?” I sat there for a few moments and – yes – was speechless (imagine…). Now I’m not sure exactly what my answer […]

Interestingly I listen to sales people in the AV (AV/IT, etc.) industry talk about trying to explain what they do to someone whether at an event, a party or even in an elevator, where of course you have about 20-30 seconds (thus the elevator pitch) to get that Aha moment from the listener. In my almost […]

The Ultimate Drone? Qualcomm Technologies, the $26 billion (2014 sales) wireless chip company is looking for a new market to consume Snapdragon 800 series SoCs (system on a chip), in large part due to the persistent market strength of the iPhone which only makes use of some of Qualcomm’s technology (even though there is usage of the chip in the […]

Will new headsets and more powerful phones pave the way for brain-controlled smartphone apps? Imagine calling your friends through the power of thought? According to an IBM and Xerox paper (*) summarizing the state-of-the-art in Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI), applications may well be developed including brain-driven software for dialing numbers, as well as for messaging and calling […]

InFocus Corporation says it has made it easier for people to connect and collaborate across platforms and the globe with a major expansion of its ConX Video Meeting (pronounced “Connects”) cloud-based group video conferencing service. The enhanced abilities include: the addition of full HD meeting rooms that can connect up to 25 participants, new Web […]

Pakedge has introduced the third generation of its BakPak Cloud Management System, which is now available industry-wide after its limited release last month at InfoComm 2015. It is also now shipping with the NP36 network patroller. The cloud based remote management solution gives integrators end-to-end control from a distance with in-depth monitoring of network devices […]

At InfoComm, Kramer will unveil a wireless classroom solution that combines Kramer’s VIA Wireless Presentation and Collaboration solutions, Kramer K-Touch 3.0 Cloud-based control platform and Kramer HDMI/HDBaseT signal distribution in a packaged configuration. Called the Kramer Collaborative Classroom the hub is their VIA Connect PRO for small group collaboration at tables or huddle spaces. Kramer’s […]

After what I considered a highly successful trip to Enterprise Connect last month as media for rAVe, it’s time to turn focus to InfoComm and UCC in the audio visual space. When you consider the realm of Unified Communications and Collaboration, it is no doubt one of the (if not the) most visible sectors of […]

Enterprise Connect delivers a unique opportunity for enterprise end users to meet the industry’s thought and market-leaders and hear comprehensive analyses of the products, technologies and applications that are — or soon will be — in the market. Unified communications, WebRTC, video, wireless, contact centers, the cloud and more make up the focus of Enterprise […]

After a brief period of dormancy, the unified communications (UC) industry took a healthy jump to life last year. What will this year bring for the industry? UC experts are predicting the biggest trends and what they mean for enterprises and institutions looking to expand and improve their collaboration experience in 2015. A recent article […]

The “Disruptors” Enter the Market In 2013, executives, engineers, salespeople and others who came from well-known industry videoconferencing manufacturers entered the market and continued to build upon a newly growing landscape of communications innovation through the implementation of advanced technologies – cloud computing and virtual machine (VM). Certain companies had already existed in this space […]

Kaleidescape today announced the launch of the Kaleidescape Alto, a movie player that is the first movie player to import 100 percent of its locally-stored content from the cloud, via downloads from the Kaleidescape Store — with over 8,500 movies and 1,600 TV seasons licensed from the major motion picture studios. Kaleidescape Alto can play […]

A month or so ago, a participant in an upcoming article that I have written about Google Glass and wearables usage in higher education (coming in December) and I started another discussion, this one touching on beacon technology. I have to say that it was so enlightening, I decide that we should have a followup […]

This is the fourth blog in the series Disruptive Forces: The Leaders Speak. Profile: Tom-Erik Lia is the CEO of Videxio, which he co-founded in 2011. Tom-Erik’s backstory: As a former vice president of research and development at TANDBERG (now Cisco), Tom-Erik Lia has 20 years of experience managing, creating and building video collaboration product portfolios, including working on […]

Convergence, in terms of technological convergence (according to Wikipedia), is the tendency for different technological systems to evolve toward performing similar tasks. The premise of AV and IT convergence is simple, two separate realms of technology come together as a single entity to expand the industry’s capabilities to satisfy full-scale technology needs of the end user. In […]

Global Caché today at CEDIA announced the availability of Control Tower, a secure IR database in the cloud. The online database is available for integrators/installers, users and Global Caché partners. Global Caché’s products connect almost any electrical device to a Wi-Fi and/or IP network so it can be controlled, automated and maintained by network-based software. […]

Pakedge Device and Software’s new BakPak Cloud Management System lets system integrators remotely monitor, manage and maintain their clients’ networks to ensure that they are continuously operating properly. From a smartphone, tablet or any computer web browser, a technician can manage multiple client networks through a simple centralized dashboard. Configurable alerts, sent through text messaging, […]

Software always eats hardware. What do I mean by that? Just that expensive and proprietary hardware evolves into software running on commodity platforms. This phenomenon is now happening with increasing speed in AV — and it’s a great opportunity for AV resellers. It’s a chance to leverage software for ease of use, deeper integration of […]

Practically everyone now offers a collaboration solution was the clear take away from my recent visit to InfoComm 2014. From telecons to document sharing; from video calling to video conferencing; solutions in all shapes and sizes could be had. I met with a number of companies at InfoComm and learned about many solutions, but clearly […]

ihiji will introduce its network management solution to the commercial market here in Las Vegas at InfoComm 2014. With features like ConnectNinja, Auto-Discovery, and Speed Test, they are all designed to help integrators remotely monitor, service, and maintain all aspects of a client’s network and connected devices more efficiently and securely. ConnectNinja makes the ihiji […]

Autonomic has introduced the new Mirage MMS-2A music player, which delivers what the company says is reference quality high-resolution audio through three independent streams to a multi-room system with as many as 96 zones. A new generation of the company’s cloud-based media server, the MMS-2A will store, sync, schedule and stream an entire music collection […]

Clary Icon’s new OneScreen SoftServe is a cloud-based collaboration hub for video, audio and web conferencing, whiteboarding, presenting, innovating, selling and more. Clary says that the OneScreen SoftServe removes the barriers to workflow and bridges the gaps between disparate technologies so that teams don’t have to be concerned with technology, they can simply choose their […]

Hopping down from the church stage platform, iPad in hand, the church technical director sees one lighting fixture not quite overlapping the center point upstage position. He casually selects the fixture on his iPad and drags his finger while keeping his eye on the scalloped edges of the light moving slowly, stopping only when he […]

Zoom hopes to transformation of room-based conferencing with the launch of ZoomPresence. ZoomPresence is the Zoom application that runs on a Mac Mini with touchscreen functionality, and claims to offer five things: Easy set up — Zoom can be set up within minutes by connecting your HD camera, touchscreen and monitor(s) to a Mac mini; […]

OK, I’ll admit it, I’m a social media junkie. Without social media, I’m not sure I’d have even been doing such a series in the first place — I’ve gotten a very good idea of what the companies involved in this bring to the table either through certain individuals or collectively. And this company is […]

The interview — the power of the spoken word, the real sense of expression and feeling when one gives you direct response to something that you’ve been thinking and/or wondering about. In blogs previous to the last two that I’ve done on the title subject of AV/IT be they cloud, BYOD or cybersecurity, it was […]

This week we posted a news release about how Arrive Systems — a cloud-based AV control and signal management system — has decided to appoint Liberty AV Solutions – best known for its wire, VGA and HDMI distribution products — as its distributor in the USA. Arrive came to the market some three or four […]

Before the doors closed on the 2014 edition of the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) last week in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, nearly every exhibitor already knew it was a record show. NEC reported to us on Day 2 of the show that they’d seen a 40 percent increase on leads on Day 1 over 2013’s totals. […]

At ISE in Amsterdam, ihiji debuted a cloud-based IP Network Scan with Auto-Discovery and Internet Speed Test features. The ihiji invision system now features these new enhancements, which enable ihiji’s cloud-based network management solution for systems integrators and IT managers by providing increased capability to remotely detect, diagnose and resolve network issues while saving the […]

By Monica Heck Special to InfoComm International Whether you call it simply unified communications (UC) or you also throw collaboration into the mix (UCC), it’s clear that this years-old-yet-bleeding-edge technology has finally gained its footing. Even if you struggle to define the collection of videoconferencing, chat, email and other solutions that fall under the UC […]