Life + HD = Lifesize HD Video Conferencing

High Definition makes life a little clearer and more beautiful. In a nutshell, HD provides a substantially higher resolution and definition than your everyday standard. HD quality can be found not just in televisions, but also HD DVD's, specific HD television channels, and even HD computer screens. But why stop there? Some of you may already know this, but for those who don't, there's another HD option out there - Lifesize HD Video Conferencing.

But why video conferencing when there are so many programs out there that already provide a webcam interface? Well, regardless of how many options are out there for video conferencing, there still isn't one out there that truly satisfies its users. In fact, here are the top 3 issues users have when using some form of video conferencing:

1) Awful picture quality and sound

2) Slow/lagging program

3) Overall complicated user interface

Lifesize HD Video Conferencing took those problems into account and made them a thing of the past. The high quality image, sound, and user interface that comes with Lifesize Video Conferencing is so revolutionary that current users can now not even imagine running their business operations without it. Lifesize VIdeo conferencing can be used by practically any department from finance, engineering, human resources, manufacturing, marketing, product development, sales, training, etc. and can play a vital role in the success of the business.

How can Lifesize Video Conferencing help out your business?

Cuts down travel time

Prevents meeting delays

Organizes meeting

Display high quality presentations

More involvement among employees

Real time, high quality exchange of information, regardless of time or place

Faster response

Improve customer service

More engagement in communication

Many businesses would agree that integrating Lifesize into their operations has significantly provided them with more efficiency, productivity, and a definite competitive edge.

... But of course, there are those companies that are small in size and would prefer to invest in a more affordable option of video conferencing without having to skimp on the features. Well, now smaller businesses can purchase HD video conferencing without having to worry about complicated technology on expensive technology.

Lifesize on a Smaller Scale

Lifesize is known for bringing world class, HD video conferencing to big businesses around the world, but now, it can also be an option for small businesses. The Lifesize Icon 400 is specifically designed to bring the same power and quality one would expect from Lifesize to a much smaller scale. It provides small meetings and huddle rooms with the ability to participate in high quality video conferencing, without having to worry about installing a large, complicated, and expensive solution.

The Lifesize Icon 400 may be smaller in size, but it is definitely not lacking in any of the exceptional features. You can still expect features such as seamless call escalation, shared directories, virtual meeting rooms, guest invites, etc. just to name a few. This is also on top of the obvious qualities to expect with Lifesize such as next to perfect video quality, great sound quality, easy user interface, and automatic updates. Features such as those just listed are what make Lifesize such an immersive experience. It beautifully brings together its users so that they can share their knowledge, ideas, and overall presence with others around the world.

What makes the Icon 400 different than other Lifesize video conferencing solutions is the way in which it is designed. The camera and the end point are built into one piece of small and sleek equipment that can be placed on any sturdy surface. There are also fewer cables, making it much easier and quicker to install. Lastly, it is designed so compactly that it can only support 1 display, 1 laptop, 1 audio device, and 1 Ethernet cable at a time. Remember, this was done with intention for the small conference room. So keep in mind that although it may be smaller in size, that does not at all mean that the features and quality have gone down as well.

The History of Radio

When people tuned in to their sets for sports, weather, news, and entertainment during the first half of the 20th century, they heard what they looking for, but, ironically, did very little "looking." This was radio-a stepping stone to what would eventually become television-and it had a history of its own.

Those who had a hand in its foundation, however, did not know at the time what they were inventing. James Maxwell, for example, was one the first to investigate electromagnetic fields and in 1888 Heinrich Hertz succeeded in sending electromagnetic signals through space.

Perhaps the most significant early milestone was achieved by Guglielmo Marconi, who conducted several important tests with radio equipment in 1901 and then managed to send a wireless signal across the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. Radio, in essence, was born that day.

Hardly an exact science, it took more structured form five years later when Lee De Forest organized electronic signals in a vacuum tube, facilitating voice transmissions, and interest in both the device and its potential steadily increased.

Equipped with little more than a crude set located in his garage, for instance, Doc Herald began broadcasts three years later and helped others build crystal sets with the knowledge he had so far amassed. Numerous amateurs quickly followed suit.

The first organization to exploit this innovation was the American Marconi Company. Headed by David Sarnoff, who first served as its messenger and ultimately worked his way up to its executive, it was able to broadcast within a 50-mile radius, thus bringing entertainment into the homes within this area by 1916 and replacing what had previously been little more than amateur-run "talks" given by "tinkerers" with crude sets.

The ability to reach so many with a single device, however, soon signaled potential for radio equipment manufacturers, such as Westinghouse, General Electric, and AT&T. Pooling their patents, they purchased the American Marconi Company and formed the Radio Corporation of America, or RCA.

The first division within it occurred when Westinghouse and General Electric employed their patents to manufacture broadcasting and receiving equipment, while AT&T concentrated on telephone communications. Nevertheless the most successful of the original three, the latter demonstrated the impact communication could have when it was offered $100, then a considerable sum, by a Long Island real estate firm to disseminate information about the homes they had available for sale during ten minutes of air time, and listener response proved overwhelming. Radio advertising was born.

Placing it on the path to unprecedented growth, AT&T itself became independent and formed its own station, WEAF, connecting it with Boston radio station WNAC in 1923. It was only the beginning of its network of affiliations and reach.

Still comprising the other half of RCA, Westinghouse and General Electric, aware of its partner's growth, followed suit, forming their own station, WJZ. Since they did not receive advertising support for the venture, however, it barely limped along for two years until AT&T sold them its own WEAF station in 1926, enabling the combined Westinghouse and General Electric concern to develop into the National Broadcasting Company, or NBC, which owned half the stock, while the original RCA held the other half.

Reflecting their US broadcast areas, a chart with either red or blue lines indicated the cities to which, respectively, WEAF and WJZ transmitted.

With success came monopoly-and federal government intervention. Deeming the arrangement anti-competitive, the government itself forced NBC to sell its blue transmission network, shedding itself of its WJZ station, which subsequently became the American Broadcasting Company, or ABC.

A third, independent network, soon controlled by William S. Paley, was formed the following year, CBS.

What began as a hobby for amateurs had evolved into a multiple-corporation business with incredible reach. But, because of the extensive use of the airwaves, demand soon exceeded their capacity and the system's overburdened use often resulted in unclear transmissions, with one station overlapping others.

Although Congress had anticipated this dilemma when it had created the Radio Act of 1912, its solution of requiring station licenses for all transmitters did little to ameliorate the system's overtaxed usage, since the license was easy to acquire and offered no operational restriction.

While conditions were improved when a separate license category for commercial broadcasting companies was created, President Hoover went a step further by determining which radio stations would be granted air access and which ones would not.

The act, needless to say, sparked controversy and was deemed unconstitutional. Eugene F. McDonald, for example, who owned station WJAZ in Chicago, claimed that the president had exceeded his authority by making such determinations and this prompted the subsequent Radio Act of 1927, which advocated that broadcasting services could only be provided by private enterprises and that the public itself would determine the types of programs they wished to hear.

Although it ameliorated most of the early obstacles, the definitive Communications Act of 1934 was ultimately established.

"Control" during these nascent times, however, was often subtler. Sponsors and advertisement agencies, for example, needed to reach as many listeners as possible in order to insure the maximum sales of their products, but felt this exposure hinged upon the quality of the shows with which they were associated. If they paid stations for advertising time and they coincidentally ran poor quality programs, they felt that the number of people reached would decline as they turned the dial in search of better features and that the shows themselves were reflective of their goods and services. Resultantly, they were able to exercise a certain amount of control over a program's production and arrangement.

During the 1930s, radio and the advertising it attracted prospered. Three large stations provided news, information, and entertainment to millions across the country who only needed to turn a dial to access it.

The foundation of many later-popular television mysteries, comedies, adventures, juveniles, and even soap operas, including "When a Girl Marries," "Mary Noble, Backstage Wife, "I Love a Mystery," "Gangbusters," and "The Shadow," was laid during this time, while these venues enabled many early actors and actresses to gain their initial exposure.

Radio became the mainstay of American entertainment for some two decades, until another emerging technology, television, appeared in the 1950s, offering both audio and visual aspects. Nevertheless, it was both the beginning and the future, since it continues to serve the purpose for which it was created-provide the information and entertainment listeners wish to hear.

How Hispanic Radio Evolves to Changing Audience

"There just has been an explosion in Spanish language," said Dennis Wharton, executive vice president of corporate communications for the National Association of Broadcasters in Washington, D.C. "The growth in Hispanic has been remarkable."

The juggernaut expansion of Spanish-language radio reflects in large part the mushrooming U.S. Hispanic population, currently estimated around 54 million, but it's also fuelled by an audience of avid radio fans and a music-loving culture.

According to 2014 figures from Nielsen Audio, 93.1 percent of Hispanics listen to the radio every week, as compared to 91 percent of Americans overall (including Hispanics). Latinos also tune in more than most other demographic groups, listening an average of 12 and 43 minutes weekly; only African-Americans top Latinos in listening time, by 16 minutes, and that tends to be an older audience as compared to Hispanic radio listeners, who skew younger.

The peak time for Hispanics to tune in is 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. as opposed to the morning and afternoon drive general-market peak times. "With a lot of Latinos in service industries, they're listening at work," said Federico Subervi, a journalism professor at Kent State University in Ohio who has studied Spanish-language radio.

Latinos' love for music is also evident. They spend more on music - $135 per month, as compared to the average of $105, according to Nielsen.

That combination of factors has helped to almost double the number of Spanish-language stations just since the turn of the century. In 2001, the first year of Nielsen Audio's statistics, there were 600 Hispanic AM/FM outlets; in 2014 there were 1,001. The trend in digital radio has followed suit: in 2010, Nielsen Audio reported 661 Hispanic HD and online streaming channels; in 2014, 820.

The growth trend shows no sign of slowing. As Latino immigrants move into new areas across the country following jobs, radio stations are being launched or reformatted to serve them. Mexican regional (the most popular Hispanic format), for instance, can now be heard in southwest Florida, traditionally a bastion of tropical music, on 105.3 FM, (WZSP) La Zeta, while Latin pop tunes debuted on Cleveland's airwaves last year on 87.7 FM (WLFM) La Mega.

"A lot of entrepreneurs see market opportunity," said Tomás Martínez, chief executive officer of Miami's Solmart Media, which owns WZSP-FM and WZSS-FM, a Mexican regional dance music station, also in southwest Florida.

A bigger audience base is resulting in better quality AM and FM frequencies switching to Spanish-language than in the past, when it was typically small AM stations who broadcast Hispanic formats, said Frank Saxe, managing editor of InsideRadio, an industry trade journal. "As the economy improves, more broadcasters are willing to take the risk," Saxe said.

Spanish-language broadcasters are also on the forefront of the digital radio trend. With Latinos' higher than average usage of smartphones, Hispanic radio has embraced digital from simply requiring on-air talent to be active on popular social media platforms to making major investments in online strategies.

Entravision Communications, one of the largest Hispanic radio owners with 49 stations, last year acquired Pulpo Media, an online advertising service for Hispanic consumers, to ramp up its mobile and digital advertising efforts, in a deal worth $18 million.

New York-based Sun Broadcast Group, which operates Sun Latino, the largest independent U.S. Hispanic network with 283 affiliates, earlier this year signed with Shazam, an app that allows listeners to key in to their smartphones for more information about a song playing on the radio, to offer as part of its programming service to stations.

Digital efforts are particularly a must for Spanish-language radio to remain relevant to the growing population of English-dominant Hispanics, industry observers say. Entravision, which is based in Santa Monica, Calif., will be launching coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign in English on some of its broadcast websites later this year.

Others broadcasters, are flipping formats to bilingual or all English to appeal to the 18 to 34 demographic with varying degrees of success. Univision Radio, the largest Hispanic radio company with 69 stations, flipped Dallas station 107.9 KESS-FM from a regional Mexican format to mostly English rhythmic hits in 2012, but in 2013 returned to regional Mexican.

"Since the Hispanic population is a younger population, there's more urgency among Spanish-language operators to adapt programming to the younger listener," Saxe noted. "But bilingual formats haven't really caught on."

English-preferring listeners simply tune in to general market stations when they want that programming and to Spanish stations for Hispanic-oriented programming that general market stations don't provide, he said.

That's the key reason why broadcasters predict that robust demand for Spanish-language radio will continue. "We offer music that we grew up with, information that affects our lives in the Hispanic community," Martínez said. "Take immigration. You won't find one general-market station that will spend five minutes on how to get your papers."

An ongoing challenge for Spanish-language stations is accurate ratings. Ratings services have long found it difficult to sign up enough Hispanics to wear Portable People Meters that record their radio and TV consumption throughout the day. Immigrant families, in particular, are suspicious of the device and reluctant to participate. When Nielsen can't enroll a representative sample of a demographic group, it weights the sample using statistical calculations. Radio executives complain that practice can lead to one family's listening habits being counted disproportionately and skewing listenership measurement.

"The PPM rating changed things significantly," noted Sean Ross, editor of Ross on Radio newsletter. "It coincided with diminishing Spanish-language and urban ratings."

Many broadcasters, including Martínez, advocate that the industry move to a "return on investment" model to sell advertising, which requires attributing an action taken by the consumer to the advertising campaign, which can be done via social media or websites.

For Spanish-language radio, the issue is particularly important. Besides the danger of skewed ratings, ad rates have traditionally been lower than general market stations. Wharton of the NAB said he is hopeful that will change as advertisers see the importance of reaching Hispanic consumers. "Over time, that will work itself through because the economic pie that Latinos represent. They deserve fair market value for the listeners they deliver," he said.

Looking ahead, Spanish-language radio is predicted to keep growing with a wider variety of formats, and more mobile and online delivery and advertising. The bottom line: "Hispanic stations offer a product the general market doesn't offer," Martínez said.

Christina Hoag is a freelance writer and editor. She has covered the U.S. Hispanic market and Latin America for the past 15 year for the Miami Herald, Business Week, Latin Trade and many other publications.

Online Free Radio - All You Need for an Excellent Time

Are you fond of playing games or listening to your favorite music? Or do you want to be updated with the latest news? Now you can have it all - music, games and news - with Internet radio stations. No matter where you are, you can tune in to different channels across the globe, free of charge.

Most of us cannot live without music. Whatever we are doing or wherever we are, we want to hear familiar songs. There are people who are always eager to listen to the news, watch them on news channels or read about them in newspapers. However, we just can't bring newspapers or take along our music systems all the time. When you listen to music, read news or watch your favorite programs online, these activities can cost a lot. If you are among the addicts mentioned above, then read on to discover a number of digital ways to enjoy all the activities above without paying a single cent.

More about Free Online Live Radio

Think of free live radio as one of the greatest forms of entertainment. You can easily access this by means of free online radio stations, no matter what location you are in. What makes them more interesting is the fact that you can tune in to channels from most parts worldwide. There is a multitude of programs available, such as songs, games and current news that are accessible through different websites. In the past, radio devices functioned by receiving radio signals. However, the reception was not clear because of the weak signal. Luckily, with the introduction of the Internet, those trying days are gone. We can now tune in to different radio stations with no difficulty at all and enjoy top quality signal.

No Registration

This may come as a surprise, but you do not need to register with sites such as these. There are online sites that provide a listening facility as a guest to radio programs, but you are required to register on the radio station website. You can now make your own playlist, play different online games and listen to several songs at absolutely no cost.

Versatile Sources

Free radio stations are fast becoming the first choice of listeners with each passing day due to their many channels. People who travel from time to time have a lot to benefit from a free live radio. This can keep them updated with the latest news about their hometown or other places, as well. This can also be considered cost-effective, since you do not have to pay any fees such as registration.

All you have to do is choose the website that provides free online radio stations, and enjoy the programs you like. Now, even if you do not come home in time to watch the latest news or your favorite program, you will never miss a thing. You can also listen to non-stop live music for free. You will never have a boring moment, since these stations can keep you busy with free online games. There is still a lot more to enjoy. This is the life!

Beat Face to Face Meetings With Online Group Collaboration

Collaboration is a great way for people to get things done, gain knowledge and have fun together. When employees work with others in a group, they can easily solve difficult problems, share valuable learning and coordinate their work. Face to face meetings are also great for group collaboration but they also have problems.

Online Collaboration can get around some of those problems, and also provide some benefits that face to face meetings can not provide.

Following are four main problems with face to face group collaboration:

1. Same place: All team members must meet in the same place which can involve time consuming, expensive and environmentally unsustainable travel.

2. Same time: All team members must meet at the same time. And to scheduling a meeting to suit everyone is difficult in small groups and impossible in a large one.

3. No record: Each person or a minute-taker must take notes about what was said.

4. Now or never: In a group meeting, you have one chance to have your say and sometimes that great idea is a little time coming.

How Online Collaboration overcome these problems

1. Participate from any place: This may seem obvious but it reflects the greatest effect that the Internet has had on the World: reduced the cost of communication. Digital communications technology has made the World smaller. You can participate in meetings from any other location.

2. Participate Anytime: Sometimes people do read or post content at different times, which is possible through various tools of online collaboration such as email, Yahoo Groups, etc. No scheduling is required.

3. Create an Archive: With online collaboration, every meeting held is automatically recorded so that there is usually a lasting archived that can be searched and browsed. It is useful for preserving organizational knowledge.

4. Participate at your own Pace:You do not have respond straight away with online collaboration. You can read the conversations at your own pace and can respond when you are ready.

Online Collaboration saves your lot of time

The benefits of online collaboration stem from the fact that an archive is created as the collaboration occurs. This allows people to participate, not at the exact moment, when they feel right. It means they can listen closely and think before they reply. Also, it gives them time to browse various discussions and choose the ones that are of most interest.

Online collaboration provides these opportunities stretching into the future. People can find the information that you post at any time in the future in online groups, saving them time with no extra effort from you.

Altura Communication Solutions is a leading provider of communication-enabled solutions and managed Business Collaboration Network services to the enterprises. It is one of the best organizations in North America provides Video Collaboration and communications solution services to customers through higher efficiency, lower cost and greater revenue.