Video conferencing in Supercomputing 2005

Video conferencing has been a fixture in visions of how we imagine the world of tomorrow web cams nor most of the corporate Video and Voip Conferencing gives the real picture of the other side. It is mostly a face in a tiny window. The Voice part has improved due to the advance in VOIP (Voice over IP) developments. But Video over IP or VVOIP? is in need of advancement.
I want the Otherside on a say 50 inch TV! Well not! Unless you are the Director of Star Wars movies!!.
Now I am offered "Shared Spaces" on three 65-inch plasma displays.! Well now where can I put them on? is the question.
Then I found this on ASCRIBE news letter that The McGill University team is competing in Seattle on Tuesday, Nov. 15, at the Suprcomputing 2005. I was wondering where to publish this. Here or on my Grid Technology Blog, Well I will do it here and publish about Suprcomputing 2005 on the other site. Update: it is there now! gridtech: Supercomputing 2005 is in Session

From the announcement the McGill University team says;
"Modern video conferencing hasn't worked well as it doesn't allow you to interrupt one another and has never managed to support the quality of interaction that people experience in real life. We wanted to change that," says John Roston, director of Instructional Multimedia Services at McGill University.
"Our technology provides a life size, high definition view on a large panoramic screen, which gives users the impression that they're talking to people in the same room with a window between them," adds Professor Jeremy Cooperstock of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Roston and Cooperstock, members of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music, Media and Technology, see the new technology being used in business, education, health care, and many other contexts. They are at the leading edge of a community of researchers who are out to change the current video conferencing experience by allowing people in different cities to feel as though they are in the same room together.

To show what they can do, Roston and his colleague Jeremy Cooperstock have arranged for jazz conductor Gordon Foote to teach his music students at McGill all the way from Seattle. Foote will conduct them in real time, coaching and guiding their performance as if they are in the same concert hall.

The event will take place as part of Bandwidth Challenge 2005, an elite annual competition at which nine teams of top scientists will showcase exceptional uses of new technology. The challenge will take in Seattle as part of Supercomputing 2005 where world experts from academia and industry, including Bill Gates, gather to discuss high performance computers and networking.

"Shared Spaces" is only one of several applications of new technologies being employed by the McGill Ultra-Video conferencing Research Group. The Group draws together top people from diverse disciplines who use technology to understand and enhance human experience. The group's projects also include a live undersea high definition video camera and remote sign language interpretation for the deaf.

The McGill team is competing in Seattle on Tuesday, Nov. 15 from 5-6 PM (PST). Find them at booth number 6017. Learn about their technology here.