The Company is currently in a dispute with its largest customer over the payment of significant monies which the Company believes are owed to it. The customer’s refusal to pay such monies has contributed to a shortfall in the operating cash available to the Company to continue operations. Accordingly, on January 30, 2008, the Company shut down its operations as a first step to winding down its business, which will occur if the Company is not able to secure payment of the monies believed to be owed and/or new financing. The Company continues to explore potential financing opportunities and is also pursuing legal recourse against the customer. The Company would intend to resume operations if it can obtain financing or payment of the monies believed to be owed in a timely manner. Without such financing or the payment of monies believed to be owed, however, the Company will continue its plan to wind down the business.
This leaves customers who bought the videophones out in the cold because the Ojo depends on a service provided by the company to route the video calls between Ojo phones. The company had depended upon the monthly subscription model where customers would pay around $15 per month for the videophone network routing service.
Recently, the company had attempted to expand into the Video Relay Service or VRS market in partnership with Snap!VRS. Under the partnership, it is reported that Snap!VRS bought 3000 Ojo videophones to send to deaf and hard of hearing users to communicate with regular telephone users via ASL interpreters.
Snap!VRS CEO Richard Schatzberg sent out a notice claiming that they are the company in question that WorldGate blames for the lack of payment which led to the shutdown.
In his response, Schatzberg says, “While WorldGate would like to direct the blame for its present financial troubles on us, the blame does not reside with Snap!VRS and it is misleading for WorldGate to suggest so. In actuality, we are current on all payments and do not owe WorldGate any money.”
WorldGate was founded in 1995 by current CEO Hal Krisbergh. The company has never turned a profit and reported a loss of $2.7 million for the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2007.
ooVoo video chat version 1.5 has been released and it includes a new feature that allows you to record a multi-party video conference and post it directly to YouTube.
The New York based video conferencing software company is planning a series of showcase events beginning on February 10th called My ooVoo Day where a number of high-profile bloggers will use ooVoo videoconferencing to interact with their audience live and face-to-face.
Some of the other features of ooVoo include: videoconferencing with as many as six participants, video messaging, text chat, file sharing, click-to-call links for Web sites or social media pages and free voice calls to regular phones in the US and Canada.
ooVoo seems to have taken the best features of some of its most popular desktop videoconferencing and VOIP competitors and packaged them together in a compelling offer. It has the video effects and slick multi-person interface of Apple iChat, the video messaging, video conference recording and click-to-call features that are popular in SightSpeed and the peer-to-peer file sharing and voice calls to the telephone network of Skype.
One of the places where ooVoo is lacking at this point is cross-platform compatibility. Both Skype and SightSpeed work among Macs and PCs. OoVoo is PC only; however, a Mac version is said to be in the works.
Subscribe to get an update once I have a chance to review ooVoo and compare the video and sound quality of ooVoo vs Skype and other personal videoconferencing software.
Steve Garfield explains how he will use his phone to stream live video to the Internet on Super Tuesday.
Watching the movie “Back to the Future” in 1985, my imagination was captured by the scene where Christopher Lloyd’s zany character, Doc Brown, showed Marty McFly his little VHS-C camcorder and explained that in 30 years, an entire Television Studio would squeeze into that little box.
Once I realized that JVC and Sony were actually making those small video recorders, it lead me to purchase one of the first HandyCams and embark on a hobby and later a career in video production.
What Doc’s portable TV Studio in a Box lacked back then was the ability to broadcast live. Now, it appears we have entered an era where not only is the studio portable but the broadcast transmitter is as well. Using a palm-sized Nokia N95 smartphone and an Internet service from qik.com, anyone can send live video to a worldwide audience in real time.
On Super Tuesday, vlogging pioneer, Steve Garfield plans to go live on the streets of Boston to cover the action and reaction. Where Personal Videoconferencing is about one-to-one live video communication, Personal Mobile Broadcasting is one-to-many live video.
House uses his iSight camera to check in with his patient in Antarctica.
Mira Sorvino plays a woman stricken with a mysterious disease at the South Pole who communicates with House via Webcam.
After the Super Bowl, Fox showed a new episode of House, M.D. in which video conferencing played a starring role. Dr. House was called upon to diagnose a patient who worked at the South Pole. Their only form of communication was through a video conferencing link.
The misanthropic doctor who usually avoids personal contact with patients in his own hospital, ends up developing a fondness and intimacy with the attractive patient. He even brings his work home and checks in with her via his MacBook Pro.
It was great to see video conferencing technology featured so prominently in a prime time network TV show. Especially one shown immediately after what may have been the most-watched Super Bowl in history.
Even though the portrayal of the video technology took certain artistic license as Hollywood often does, it did demonstrate the potential life-saving applications as well as the ability for videophones to facilitate distant human relationships.
Joining The Family on Christmas Morning via Skype Video
Here is an example of how one woman used video conferencing technology to join in the Christmas morning festivities of her extended family by using Skype and a video camera connected to a PC.
This is a great illustration of how video conferencing can bring families together when it is just impossible to be physically present at special times.
Christmas morning is one of those occasions (birthdays is another) where we tend to videotape the occasion for posterity. Why not hook up the camcorder to a long cable and send out the video live to the Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles who live across the country or on the other side of the world.
Tonight we ring in the New Year. At midnight many of us will reach for our phone or Blackberry and voice or text our best wishes to far flung friends and family.
If you plan on sending those wishes via text message in the UK, you can expect an electronic traffic jam that may delay your mobile SMS, photo or video message for as much as six hours according to a study commissioned by Palm.
Last New Year’s Eve in Great Britain, the strain on the network at midnight caused 70% of all mobile text messages to be delayed. And 23% were delivered over 6 hours later.
In the US, Verizon Wireless says that last New Year’s Eve, their customers exchanged over 284 million text messages and nearly 4.75 million multimedia messages. This year they expect to exceed 300 million messages exchanged from 12 p.m. today until 4 a.m. tomorrow, New Year’s Day.
We’ll be using video conferencing to connect with my wife’s folks in Belgium as the clock strikes midnight over there.
That New Year’s Eve video call has been a tradition for perhaps 8 or 9 years now. The video calling systems we’ve used have changed and the quality has improved over the years but every December 31st, at 6:00 PM eastern in the US, we see my inlaws on live video as they greet the New Year six hours ahead of us.
Being able to share that experience over a video call has been one of the delights of the magic of personal video conferencing.
Try arranging a video call to someone tonight and raise a toast for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2008.
Using a webcam can help you maintain a long-distance relationship according to an article published on CNN.com.
The deployment of soldiers to Iraq or Afghanistan and civilian business travel are separating spouses and lovers. The prolonged absences and not being able to see each other every day can place a strain on relationships.
Phone calls, email and instant messaging are some of the ways couples stay in touch. Some have picked up a pair of webcams and started using video calls in order to bring them closer and experience more face-to-face contact.
Army Spc. Gerrod Cooksey is in Iraq with the 1st Cavalry Division. His wife, Kelly, waits for him in Ft. Hood, Texas with their two children. She is able to communicate with her husband via videoconferencing and says, “Webcams make a huge difference in our morale. He gets to see the baby getting bigger, and we get to see him to make sure that he is okay.”
Good communication is said to be the number one most important aspect to overcoming the challenge of a long-distance relationship and a personal video conferencing hookup can be the best way to stay emotionally close while you are physically apart.
I am beginning to see personal videoconferencing used more often on live television as a video link to interview or interact with people in their own homes and offices. This is a convenience for busy interviewees or experts who no longer have to travel to the studio to shoot a short live segment. This trend is also granting access to television viewers who can contribute to broadcasts from their home computer using a webcam.
A recent example was the 2007 Primetime Emmy Awards Presentation which featured a live videoconference via Apple iChat. Perhaps it was to emphasize the Green With Emmy Campaign which included providing hybrid vehicles for the presenters, delivering the swag in reusable canvas bags and cooking all the catered food in a solar oven. Or the fact that the award presented via the videoconference was going to environmentalist Al Gore who also happens to sit on the board of Apple, Inc., which makes the iChat AV software.
Actor Masi Oka from the series Heros, stood behind a Mac Book Pro with a built-in iSight camera and addressed the television audience. With one of the founders of MySpace online, even though he was sitting in an office across town, Oka said, “We thought it only fitting that we use the technology of the Internet to announce the Emmy honoree for creative achievement in interactive television.”
“So please welcome, all the way from his office in Los Angeles, the president of MySpace and everyone’s first virtual friend, Mr. Tom Anderson.” The TV broadcast cut to the iChat screen as he said, “Tom. Are you there?”
Anderson took over, “Yeah, thanks Masi. I’m honored to present this Emmy to a new sort of network that really lived up to its name, Current TV. Founded in 2005 by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, Current TV is created every day by the people who watch it. Gentlemen, congratulations, come on up, and get your Emmy.”
I think we are going to see more of this type of hybrid internet webcam and professional broadcast as consumer level personal videoconferencing technology improves and is adopted by more people.
Where have you seen webcams employed in broadcast television? Send a comment.
