UAVs + VSee for NIST Wildland Fire Protection

Posted on April 23, 2013 by anne — No Comments ↓

Last week, a wildfire outbreak shut down some main roads near my home for 2 days. Luckily no one was hurt, and there was little damage to homes, but this isn’t always the case. Award-winning author Maxine Hong Kingston once lost the entire manuscript of her new book to an Oakland wildfire which also burned down her house. In California alone, an average of over one thousand structures per year have been destroyed by wildfires since 2000. Nationwide, fire departments have responded to an estimated average of 356,800 per year from 2004 to 2008. That translates to 976 such fires every day.

With statistics like these, VSee is excited to be a part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) research project to battle these destructive wildfires. The Wildland Urban Interface Fire Research Project uses small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) more commonly known as “drones” embedded with VSee to help collect real-time data from fires that begin in Wildland Urban Interfaces (WUI) or areas where extensive woods and brush mix with numerous structures and their inhabitants. Since very little is known about how WUI fires start, the project is working towards a better understanding of these wildfires in order to improve the way we prevent and contain these fires.

Mike Hennig is the UAV Pilot at Controls for this NIST project and has used mini drones in various capacities from assisting a National Geographic expedition in search of Ghengis Khan’s tomb to supporting humanitarian disaster responses to partnering with the San Diego State University Visualization Center and local public safety units to fight wildfires. A news report explains the benefits of using drones:

Using the drone instead of firefighting helicopters does not just save money. It also eliminates the risk of having to place a pilot in the air. The drone is lightweight, can fly in high winds, and can take off from virtually any location. It has two cameras; one for streaming video that can be watched in real time online and one that takes high resolution pictures. Typically, it soars 400 to 500 feet above the ground and can go as high as 12,000 feet. The drone can stay in the air for about an hour, running off an electronic motor system.

Source: SDSU Firefighting Drone

For Hennig and his fellow NIST researchers, VSee provides a way for the deployed team to communicate with their counterparts in real-time. This is important for providing field data, enhancing UAV flight plans, collaborating on data collection, and other research activities during field efforts. With VSee, remote team members can instantly share field data and provide feedback on the quality and integrity of the various data sets, even modifying data as needed. Hennig says “We’ve benefited tremendously from VSee. Having a video communication resource that is simple to install, and even easier to use has allowed our field researchers to focus on their tasks without having to spend a lot of time learning a new tool.”

In the future they plan to do even more with VSee as a means of sharing relevant sensor feeds from the UAV systems and field level sensors. Meanwhile, VSee’s low-bandwidth, real-time video communication over satellite is already making a big difference in the quality of their research collaboration and data collection.

Photo courtesy: Glenn Batuyong via Flickr

Thank You, VSee, from The Austin Vibe Interior Design & Remodeling House

Posted on March 8, 2013 by anne — No Comments ↓

The Austin Vibe is a family-owned business and an adventure in building beautiful spaces. It brings together the vision and creative passions of Taryn Kuczynski, Wade Knowlin, and Sean James in a style they describe as “eclectic sophistication meets fun and funk.” We recently received a thank you note from them, telling us how VSee video chat has made it possible for their company to collaborate on creative work:

Thank you so much for allowing us the use of your video conferencing program. It has been wonderful for our business, because two of my business partners live in Austin where most of our business comes from at this moment, and I am here in San Antonio.

As an interior design and remodeling company, we have many choice selections on a daily basis and we like to all be a part of it. Without VSee, this would be impossible. We have used VSee to choose flooring, tile backsplash, and even paint swatches. We can share our screens and even our Photoshop program that we used to design our own logo. We could take control of each others screens and make changes as needed. It has been an amazing tool for us.

We also plan on having our first client VSee session this weekend for tile choices. Since we need to make a final purchase by Monday morning, and they will not be available before that, VSee will make it possible for us to keep their project moving forward.

VSee is allowing us to bridge multiple gaps to satisfy our clients needs! :)

-Taryn Kuczynski, Co-founder and Chief of Operations

And thank you, The Austin Vibe, for using VSee! We’re proud to be a part of your creative work. VSee set out to make a tool that can really make a difference in the way people work and live, and it’s stories like yours that let us know that we’re accomplishing our goal!

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VSee User Story: Staying Connected From York University To Kenya and Beyond

Posted on February 26, 2013 by anne — No Comments ↓

What makes VSee a compelling tool?
Quality video, ease of use, network cost savings

Stephen Otienostiv is a visiting scholar at York University from Kenya. A longtime Skype user, he found that Skype simply couldn’t cut it when it came to video chats with his family back in Kenya. It constantly dropped video calls, leaving him frustrated and without any other alternative. Most of the time he and his family ended up doing voice calls, but it simply wasn’t the same. Finally, Stephen met a technician at York University with 25 years experience in video conferencing who introduced him to VSee. It changed his life.

A Thousand and One VSee Video Calls

Within a few short months of becoming a VSee user, Stephen made nearly a thousand VSee calls. VSee’s low bandwidth optimization (which uses half the bandwidth of Skype) makes it possible for him to see his fiancee in Kenya twice a day, as well as his father and brother on a regular basis. It was also extremely easy to download and install, especially in the case of his less tech-savvy parents. On top of this, VSee saves his family 60 to 70% in network costs compared with Skype video chat, which is not only “unreliable” but also quite expensive to use in Africa.

What Makes VSee Different From Skype

“VSee,” Stephen says, “is a new phenomenon…something different from Skype.” The key, he thinks, is in VSee’s simple screen sharing and file-sharing capabilities which he asserts are very powerful. Instead of emailing documents back and forth, Stephen can directly share files and documents during a video call just as though the people are sitting together in person. This is why Stephen has also switched over to VSee for doing his consultancy work and now his virtual team in the U.K., Ireland, Italy, and South Africa are all on VSee for their biweekly meetings.

VSee has really made an impact in Stephen’s life. Not only is it helping him get work done more easily, it’s also allowing him to stay connected to those who are most important to him.

Thanks, Stephen, for your VSee story!

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VSee for St. Martin Parish School District

Posted on November 29, 2012 by anne — No Comments ↓

For supervisors of technology Redell Louis and Kellie LeBlanc, video conferencing was a necessity. The question was how to get it.

As technology supervisors for the St. Martin Parish School District in rural South Central Louisiana, Louis and LeBlanc are in charge of ministering to the needs of 17 schools and 4 main offices in a district that takes 2 hours to drive from end to end. Meeting and coordinating the technology needs of all these schools would be impossible without video conferencing technology. A typical meeting for them includes 4 people in 4 different towns. Even with someone out sick, video conferencing allows them to still meet and get things done.

Desktop Video Conferencing Options

Like most cash-strapped public schools, a Cisco or Polycom video conferencing solution was simply out of St. Martin Parish’s league. They needed something that they could use immediately without going through a bureaucratic purchase request. They looked into using Skype, but Skype’s group video calling was not free. Then they looked into ooVoo, but it was blocked by the school network’s firewall which would have been a major hurdle to overcome. Then they discovered VSee’s simple video conference with screen share, and they haven’t looked back since.

Why VSee?

For St. Martin Parish, VSee was a simple solution for all their needs. VSee was easy to install and use. It required no administrative privileges and no backend set up or finagling. Within 15 minutes of discovering VSee they were able to get everyone they needed set up and using it like a pro.

The cherry on top was that VSee had all the features they needed right at their fingertips. VSee’s fast screen share is a favorite, and VSee’s drag-and-drop file send is, in the words of LeBlanc, an “AWESOME feature.” Before discovering VSee they had to use at least two separate programs – VNC for screen share and Skype for video calling, which also meant double the troubleshooting. With VSee everything is built into a single application. LeBlanc adds, “The [VSee] tool is so easy to use…everything is so self explanatory.”

VSee’s one-click call design is also perfect for fielding ad hoc video calls and meetings. Any of the principals and technology coordinators at their 17 schools, and even the district superintendent can easily reach Louis and LeBlanc anytime, allowing them to resolve those pesky technical issues that come up during the school day.

VSee at the LACUE Conference

They are so excited about VSee that they will be spreading the word about VSee at tomorrow’s Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educators (LACUE) Conference in New Orleans. LeBlanc and Peggy Hebert from Teche Elementary will be presenting a workshop to show other Louisiana educators just how easy and fast meeting online can be with VSee.

But don’t worry if you can’t be there. VSee is so easy to use, you can try it out for yourself now!

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VSee vs. ooVoo: A Look At Video Quality, Collaboration, and Security

Posted on November 14, 2012 by milton — 8 Comments ↓

Are VSee and ooVoo really that different? After all we both claim to have HD video conference, ongoing collaboration, free video calls, and no need for fancy equipment. While I can’t tell you if VSee is the ooVoo alternative for your needs, I will point out some issues with video quality, collaboration design, and security that may help. Of course, the best thing to do is to try out VSee and ooVoo for yourself, especially since both offer free group video calls.

Video Quality

I’m not alone when I say that VSee provides some of the highest quality interactive video around. VSee’s proprietary technology is designed to use 30-50% less bandwidth than most video calling solutions including ooVoo, WebEx, and Skype, which means that VSee is able to deliver high quality video over some of the weakest networks. In fact, VSee is able to deliver four HD video feeds simultaneously over a 4G wireless network. So when ooVoo says it offers HD video, while it may work in theory, it’s questionable how well it works in practice. Even Skype offers HD video, but few people are able to actually take advantage of it. In any case, we did our own little comparison of how much network resources VSee and ooVoo take up. I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves:

*Figures are for upload/download speeds, respectively and are taken from two-way video calls.

Resolution	VSee	ooVoo	ooVoo’s self-stated network requirements
Default (320 x 240 p, VSee) (352 x 288 p, ooVoo)	50-150 Kbps	192-216 Kbps	180 Kbps
High Resolution (480 p)	70-250 Kbps	504-592 Kbps	384 Kbps
High Definition (720 p)	300-1000 Kbps	960-2000 Kbps	435 Kbps (download)

Instant Collaboration

OoVoo, Vidyo, and Skype are not designed for fast collaboration. They are designed for video conferencing or VoIP calling, and have added on screen share and maybe some file transfer functions. VSee, on the other hand, was specifically designed to facilitate sharing and collaborating based on years of Stanford PhD research on how people work and play. This means it only takes one click for anyone to share an application window (and it doesn’t have to be your entire desktop, which saves you from having to clean your desktop of incriminating or personal information.) Furthermore, VSee allows all participants to instantly annotate, circle, and draw anywhere in a shared window. Participants are also able give and take mouse/keyboard control for any shared application. Finally, VSee’s drag-and-drop file send is an intuitive way to immediately “hand over” files that you have just finished collaborating on together.

Security

Not to continue beating a horse that’s still very much alive, but ooVoo relies on a go-between server that can expose your information to the public. With VSee, your information is encrypted from the moment it leaves your computer all the way to its final destination (the receiving person). At no point is your information ever decrypted and re-encrypted at a middleman server. Finally, I was very surprised to find that ooVoo actually e-mails your account password to you in plain text. This is a big security no-no that’s taught in any introductory security class. Even my non tech-savvy mom knows not to send passwords via e-mail.

Summary

VSee’s network adaptive technology allows for higher quality video calls than ooVoo
VSee’s research-based user design makes group collaboration more intuitive and more productive than ooVoo
VSee’s client-to-client architecture creates a more secure video calling connection than ooVoo’s client-server model

In short, if high quality video, instant collaboration, and strong security are important video conferencing and video calling features to you, make sure you know what you’re getting into with your video conferencing service, so you don’t end up with any regrets!

(article updated Apr. 18, 2013)

Simple Video Conference and Screen Share

Category Archives: Case Studies