Oblong Industries will demonstrate this week at InfoComm 2017 new touch annotation capabilities for its Mezzanine 200 Series visual collaboration solution.  It’s another key step in the evolution of the Mezzanine meeting room experience from the technology firm that places human-centered design thinking at the core of its approach to product innovation and development.

Touch annotation on the Mezzanine 200 Series opens up new and better ways to work together. Unlike many digital whiteboard solutions, which only enable annotation over a single directly connected device, Mezzanine allows annotation over multiple streams simultaneously. Collaborators can annotate over graphics or live video, including live video feeds of analog whiteboards in other locations. Snapshot the annotated content instantly to create a new asset and deliver it directly into the workspace portfolio for later reference and download. Visitors to booth 1871 at InfoComm will be able experience touch annotation first hand, which is slated for delivery in Q3 2017.

Also available for delivery in Q3 are integrations with popular enterprise utilities that are a part of the Microsoft ecosystem, including calendar integration with Microsoft Exchange and video integration with Skype for Business.  It’s easy to schedule and start Mezzanine meetings with these familiar enterprise tools, enabling remote collaborators to join directly from their Skype client, or for rooms to connect with a Skype meeting ID.

The hardware and software innovations introduced this year have brought the opening price point of the Mezzanine Series down below $50K, making it more accessible to more teams in more places. Earlier this year, Oblong announced innovations that make the Mezzanine system swift to install, including bezel-mounted infrared gesture tracking which requires no ceiling remediation, and a smaller hardware footprint to support more Mezzanine configurations and in-room installation. Added to this list of refinements, Oblong announced today both audio and video will be delivered over a single HDMI cable for Mezzanine 200, Mezzanine 300, and Mezzanine 600 Series installations starting in Q3, further streamlining the solution.

The feature set includes:

• Multi-location: connect four Mezzanine rooms for true multi-site collaboration
• Multi-stream: array up to 10 streaming devices per room at once
• Multi-surface: address all the walls of a workspace or briefing center, not just one
• VTC integration: brings voice and video as a stream alongside the contributed content
• Multi-user BYOD: PC, iOS, Android, on tablets, phones or laptops – all can join
• Wireless connectivity: no cables required, and 10 devices per room can join at once
• Remote collaboration: up to 25 remote participants can Mezz-In to meetings at once
• Shared digital workspace for distributed work: everyone shares a common view
• Large image support: zoom in for finest details and zoom out for great overview
• On premise solution: no need to connect to the cloud if security is a concern
• Workspace archive: save your session and come back to it later, right where you left off
• Easy upload: add image files or PDF files into a portfolio for more classic presentations
• Easy download: download image files or a pdf of the entire session from the browser
• Editing on the fly: edit inside connected applications, search the web, rearrange slides
• Universal desktop: the shared space can be arranged and rearranged as needed
• Visual control: dynamically move and scale graphics and videos from any device
• Concurrent control: more than one user can control the workspace at the same time
• Multi-modal control: gesture, touch, keyboard, iOS — all modes of annotation and control can work simultaneously