Meet Cisco UMI, telepresence in your living room

Cisco is looking to bring telepresence to your living room.

Cisco sees telepresence in the home as the key to new video services for the consumer in areas such as health care, education and government services (statement, Umi site, Cisco blog).

Every home in Songdo Korea will have a Telepresence unit built in like a dishwasher. And it’s the developer that is putting those into those apartments as they get built out, because that is how education, health care and government services will get delivered right into the home. It will come to you. You don’t have to go find it. And that is how they will reduce traffic congestion and pollution in the cities.

Umi will need to be acquired and installed by homeowners interested in getting up close and personal with friends and family members that also have Umi installed. Umi is entering into the VoIP market, taking on Skype and Google, bringing a significantly better picture to users. But it comes at a price. Umi hardware will cost $599 with a monthly subscription of $24.99.

Cisco provides Umi Connect software to enhance the experience. Cisco Umi streams the  video in 720x1080 p resolution.

 Link: Between The Lines