Wireless displays are one of the more exciting frontiers of technology. As little as three years ago, most of the world’s displays could only be accessed through a traditional video cable. Video transport standards and cables + adapters meant that the use-case model for displays hadn’t changed since the Xerox Star of the mid-1970s. One […]

If you’ve had the chance to browse through some Instagram posts, you’ll notice that not all pictures look exactly the same. Some photos look like they might have been altered a smidgen, as if someone has used Photoshop to edit its appearance. These photos have been edited, yes, but not with a special app. It’s all […]

IoT Continues to Open Pandora’s Box According to a PricewaterhouseCooper’s report (from October 2014), more than 20 percent of U.S. adults own at least one wearable, and soon we’ll be using them at home and work for a variety of purposes, with as many as 50 billion new connected devices by 2020. The Internet of Things has of […]

It all began here: I attended the WIN Breakfast at InfoComm 2015 and afterward the Council meeting, in part because of media responsibilities with rAVe, as well as the fact that we had done a show prior to InfoComm (our Episode 6 “We’re Talking a WIN for the AV Industry” with Erin Bolton, Jane Johnson […]

The ’90s were all about home theaters. But, let’s face it, that market is dying a rapid death. In some areas, thanks to the 1 percent mantra, having a home theater isn’t an indicator of family-fun, it’s more of a sign of braggart. But, having a smart home is a badge of environmental courage. Smart […]

For years, I have been told that COMM-TEC’s Solutions Day (this year’s being branded as S14) is the best regional AV event in the EMEA. Of course, as you all know, COMM-TEC is the leading pan-European distribution partner of AV/IT technology and carries the top brands in the industry and I have been an admirer of the COMM-TEC founder, […]

By now your Instagram account should be set up, and you should be ready to start sharing photos! Remember that Instagram is a social medium to share content via the use of photos or videos. These photos can be pretty much whatever you want them to be; if this account is a personal one, then you […]

When you meet a person for the first time, you usually ask questions to get to know them on a more personal level. You typically start the questions by asking them about their career, education, whether they are single or married, and if they have children. Based upon their answers, you start to form an […]

We are better — thanks to companies like Sonos and Apple, to be frank — but not there, yet. Hey, at least one of those companies does exhibit at CEDIA Expo. Let’s be honest, the custom home integration market is still, way, way too complicated. But, is it a people problem or a product problem. […]

Rumors are swirling!  Sharp is getting ready to ship 8K displays only 4 years ahead of any real content and others seem to be hot on their heels. With the rapid proliferation of 4K and the current, unwieldy amount of content, infrastructure, and bandwidth currently available to distribute it, it is only natural that we’re […]

Many AV resellers and integrators find themselves deploying suites of new technologies to support education.  Traditional AV gear like flat panels and speakers are being augmented with learning management software, lecture capture and wireless collaboration systems.  If you look at operational spending in education (where technology and AV is tracked) there has been a 26 […]

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 […]

Post-InfoComm, the good folks at WolfVision brought their new Cynap collaboration appliance to the office for a demo and a chat. Cynap is the latest entry into the increasingly crowded wireless collaboration space, competing with not only the WePresent and its OEM cousins (Barco Clickshare CSM, Crestron Air Media, Extron Sharepoint, etc.), but also with […]

  What many said was impossible has come to pass. Apple has announced that they’re making a stylus. That sound you hear is Steve Jobs rolling over in his grave. But for as much static as Apple is getting from the commentariat, how could they not? There are already a lot of aftermarket styli available […]

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 […]

I know it’s been a while since my last post but I just got back from an Alpine climbing expedition in the Canadian Rockies. I would like to cover something I had plenty of time to think about while stuck in a tent on a glacier waiting for the weather to clear. It’s a topic […]

Hopefully you were able to take away a good amount of information about what Twitter is and how to use it. Later in the series, we’ll return to each of the social mediums and take an in-depth look at how to use them specifically for marketing your business. For now, let’s stick with the basics. […]

Almost 3 years ago I wrote a piece asking AV professionals “Why are we talking to IT guys?”  Given my recent arguments for video over IP and the potential eclipse of AV Integration firms by large IT managed services providers, you may think that a very strange question indeed.  However, even in today’s world of […]

Your meeting space needs have grown past the capabilities of the Yellow Sticky Note on the door, and you are looking into how you might effectively manage the spaces. However you are not certain what a good Room Scheduler should include? This is a very loaded question, because there are so many different needs. Most […]

I am writing this at 6 a.m. sitting on a bar stool at the Empire Tavern at LaGuardia Airport’s terminal C. I am gearing up for a full day of travel out to the Pacific Northwest. I will be there all week and will land in NYC (JFK airport — flying out of LaGuardia and […]

One of the trickiest parts of Twitter is crafting your message into a tweet that people want to read, favorite or retweet. That message, though, has to be 140 characters or less. It’s easier than it sounds. More often than not, a short tweet that is simple and to the point is more likely to […]

I’ve already chronicled my pursuit of achieving 100% coverage in my home’s light fixtures with LED bulbs. One impediment that has slowed my progress has been cost: when Costco had a great deal on 3-packs of LED bulbs I stocked up, twice. But LED still isn’t “cheap” per se. So I try to wait for […]

Now that you’ve created a Twitter username and personalized your account, it’s time to start building your timeline. Building Your Timeline In order to read other users’ tweets and have your own tweets read, you need to follow and gain followers. By searching for other users in the search bar, you will be able to click […]

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 […]

I find it ironic that I am doing another book report considering how much I hated doing them when I was in school. Maybe I hated doing them so much because they were usually on books that I would have never chosen to read on my own and I had little interest in them. The […]

In my first Convergent TechWeek I included a story that caught my eye that week about higher education and telepresence robots: Telepresence Robots Enable Oral Roberts University Students to Tour Campus, Take Classes, and Participate in Graduation from Anywhere in the World Tulsa, Okla., August 26, 2015 — Carousel Industries, a leader in unified communications, managed services, […]

(An earlier version of this post appeared in SMART’s Next Level Collaboration blog.) Remote work is on the rise, increasing 26 percent from 2013 to 2014 according to a recent Entrepreneur article. Many see it as the wave of the future, and others view it as something better suited for the self-employed than the corporate powerhouse. […]

This Thursday night, when the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots take the field at Gillette Stadium to host the Pittsburgh Steelers, each player on the field will be equipped with a set of RFID sensors about the size of a quarter in his shoulder pads, each emitting unique radio frequencies. Gillette Stadium, as […]

Now that you’ve created a Twitter username, it’s time to personalize your account. How do you want users to perceive you or your business on Twitter? It all starts with the basics: name, photo and description. This is your Twitter Bio. Step 1: Make sure your personal information is correct. Next to your username should […]

I love the audiovisual industry. For the past 12 years, I’ve been happy to embrace this industry and call it my own. I’ve had the opportunity to meet many wonderful people and work with intelligent and just plain awesome people. Over the years I’ve realized that the audiovisual industry is no different than any other […]

By Emerson Loustau CTO, TransitScreen In many ways, signs have changed very little over the past few thousand years. But we are now at the brink of a massive global shift as digital signs become one of the easiest ways to communicate with large numbers of urban residents, commuters and travelers. The language of the […]

All good things must come to an end. The DVD player in my Media Room system appears to have croaked. It’s a trusty Denon DVD-2200 that, if I recall correctly, just had its tenth birthday. Troubleshooting it was easy: it’s not working. More specifically, if you care, it’s not loading discs, and the front panel […]