Review


NEC InfinityBoard: flexible collaboration


We have recently spent a good deal of time looking at iFPDs for business collaboration. We were


impressed by Microsoft


Surface Hub, less so by Google Jamboard, and left wondering, what if you want a professional quality, prestige but not locked down to a specific software plat- form? NEC’s Infinity Board could be your answer.


Announced in time for ISE 2017, InfinityBoard has been some time in the making. With a high quality InGlass touch screen, the well-regarded Hud- dly Camera, Sennheiser audio and NEC’s Open Pluggable Standard (OPS)slot-in PC in- terface fully developed, devel- opment time was consumed by the software – but the wait will be worthwhile. Right now, Infinity Board is available in 65” and 84” for- mats. Perhaps the 65” is a bit big for Huddle Spaces (with the addition of audio and a cam- era slot, it looks all of its 65” inches). On the other hand, as


tyBoard supports BYOD with multiple wireless presenting and collaboration options, com- patibility with just about any video conferencing platform or subscription service.


The whiteboarding facility is just about comprehensive with intuitive writing, erasing and object manipulation with cost-efficient passive pen or finger touch. Customers can be creative at the whiteboard with intuitive finger / pen touch and palm erasing, and anno- tate directly into documents. The infinite canvas that gives the product its name, allows customers to create, annotate


of Mosaic.


Paul Brown, CEO of Display- Note Technologies ,explained at InfoComm 2107 that: “We wanted to build a prod- uct that makes it easy for peo- ple to connect and share ideas, regardless of what room they ‘re in and the device types they use. We feel strongly about taking an open approach to collaboration: it shouldn’t mat- ter what hardware you use or which platform you’re on.” “Mosaic is designed for teams working in different places to annotate together on an infinite whiteboard, share images, files, edit documents and make vid-


What could you see at ISE?


1. Digital signage


AV News has asked a group of industry leaders about their expecta- tions for ISE 2018. This month, it’s the turn of digital signage expert Jeff Hastings, CEO of leading media player manufacturer, BrightSign.


1. Jeff Hastings believes that touch interactivity is pretty much a standard expectation in digital signage, whereas with gesture control it’s much less so. He attributes this to the complexity of communica- tion that sees display viewers flapping their arms repeat- edly in an attempt to effect meaningful communication. Jeff expects to see further an- nouncements but is yet to be convinced by the solutions on the market today or anticipat- ed at ISE 2018.


InfinityBoard 65” (pictured) fea- tures: X651UHD-2 Infinity, OPS, Huddly Camera, SP-65SM Infin- ity Speaker, 2 x passive pens, MultiPresenter Stick. The Infini- tyBoard 84”: X841UHD-2 Infinity, OPS, Huddly Camera, SP-84SM Infinity Speaker, 2 x passive pens, MultiPresenter Stick.


an all-in-one meeting room or boardroom solution one or oth- er of the two models will fit the majority of requirements. So, what can InfinityBoard


do? This multifunction device currently covers most of the bases - and will soon do the lot. Right now, presentations, brainstorming sessions, review- ing and annotating content, video conferencing and col- laborating are well within the capabilities of InfinityBoard’s Mosaic software suite.


The units ship comes with stylus pen and wireless pre- senting functionality. The pow- erful slot-in PC is based on the industry leading - granting you flexibility for future upgrades. Pixel-free UHD is a feature of both the 65” and 84” formats of InfinityBoard (unlike Surface Hub where the 55” is FullHD only).


Flexibility


The upgradable OPS based slot-in PC provides flexibility in the choice of apps selected by the end-user. This flexibility ex- tends to the customer’s choice of OS: Windows, MAC, Android and iOS are supported. Infini-


P6 AV News November 2017


and present, with the ability to add media panels and import and export content. For Hud- dle Spaces and smaller meet- ing rooms participants enjoy pixel-free, ultra-high definition resolution, visual performance. For our review of Infinity- Board, we sat in a fairly large space but the device’s Huddly camera, with 120° viewing an- gle, high-end speakers more than coped. In a live video call with Mosaics’ developers, Infin- ityBoard performed well in both audio and video senses. This demonstration was pretty close to a customer application, with screen to screen and room to room collaboration bringing teams together from different locations to create and share content.


Complete solution


Collaborative writing with the ability to import images, videos, PDFs and Office documents were all tested and proved the capabilities of InfinityBoard – and there is more to come as development continues. While wireless presentation to Infini- tyBoard works, but is still the subject of further development


eo calls all at the same time. In addition to display-to-display collaboration, the solution will also support display-to-device and device-to-display interac- tion, which means that users will be able to share what’s on a whiteboard with connect- ing mobile devices and take what’s on devices, like a laptop or smartphone, and cast them wirelessly to the shared white- board.”


As well as joining a live col- laborative whiteboard, users can communicate with each other via video. Video and Voice calling is built on the WebRTC framework and work has begun on integration with applications such as Skype for Business, and other leading video confer- encing providers. Aside


from the continuing


work on Mosaic, in every other sense, InfinityBoard is a com- prehensive collaborative solu- tion. In addition to the standard features (listed in the caption with the photographs), options include: a height adjustable wall trolley, and in contrast to Google Jamboard, a height ad- justable trolley.


2. Jeff is however expecting to see early demonstrations of voice interfaces with digital signs, but is not anticipating any real breakthroughs until ISE 2019, He believes that voice control could be useful but does not underestimate the difficulties of developing a solution with ability to react to commands featuring an exten- sive vocabulary and huge vari- ety of accents. It’s doable but not perhaps in three months.


3. Jeff is less convinced about that other doyen of person- alised digital signage content, facial recognition. The theory behind this is that the ability to automatically collect data on age, gender and mood can help to define the right content offering for individuals reading the digital sign. The argument runs that accurately targeted content increases user en-


gagement and dwell times, and thereby the effectiveness of the sign. Jeff doesn’t doubt that improvements can be made to the technology, but he questions whether such improvements would have any quantifiable impact on, for ex- ample, retail sales. “The task with digital signage is to con- vert mere viewing of the sign into ‘an experience’ in less than 30 seconds.”


4. Jeff is much more positive about the integration of Big Data as a feed to AI technol- ogies that choose appropriate digital signage content, but is wary of the Big Brother syn- dromes that turn consumers off the shopping experience in some stores.


5. So will digital signage be- come omnipresent? Jeff thinks it depends how you define it. Take Smart Cities as an exam- ple: in Jeff’s opinion, Smart Cities are: “just digital signage with ‘extras’.”


ISE 2018 – a breakthrough year?


Jeff Hastings believes that ISE 2018 will be a consolidatory year, building on technologies, like 4K and collaboration, that are


just entering the main-


stream. “People are talking about 8K, but it’s just too far away.” What would Jeff like to see at ISE himself? Expe- rienced users. “Experienced users are great for us. They have often bought something before from someone, and they are now aware of the


issues around quality. With novices, everything is “Yeah, Wow, Awesome! Give them 18 months and they are experi- enced buyers.”


If you would like to discuss further with Jeff, and perhaps challenge some of his ideas please make an appointment to see him on the BrightSign booth (Hall 8-G240) at ISE 2018, at the RAI Amsterdam from the 6 – 9 February 2018


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