Where Video Systems and Self-Driving Cars Converge

As I was driving to the Oslo office, it struck me how much the latest self-driving cars have in common with our new Cisco Spark Room 55 system.

At first, it seems that it’s all about user experience: Both the cars and the Room 55 pretty much drive themselves. The Room 55 is a high-performance all-in-one video system with customizable capabilities to delight you, including:

Automatic wake-up

Contextual help

One button to push to join a meeting

Automatic video framing of in-room participants

What’s behind this magic is where things align. Both innovations rely on extreme camera technology and machine learning. In a car, this means a seamless 360-degree view for passing slower cars, changing lanes safely, and self-parking. It also means machine learning capabilities for sensing and classifying objects. The Room 55’s integrated digital camera not only provides superior video quality, but detects faces to identify the number of people in the room, and will even be able to recognize those faces – with more capabilities coming in the future.

So, it’s not surprising to learn that the same electronics engine powers both the Room 55 and this new class of cars. Our engineering team harnessed the power of the NVIDIA Jetson platform to develop exciting advanced applications and pioneer a superior meeting experience that includes:

Real-time video image processing using the camera’s state-of-the-art, advanced 5k sensor allows intelligent views, analytics, and full HD encode/decode.

Advanced speech and face recognition pinpoint who’s speaking in the room, allowing the camera to selects the best framing for that person or group. It even tracks the active speakers as they move within the room.

Optimized high-fidelity audio and wireless content sharing with up to 4k resolution.

We’ll continue to innovate on the platform with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, future-proofing the Room 55 and making it an outstanding investment. Soon, the system will automatically recognize the faces of attendees and label them on screen. AI-powered natural language processing will understand voice commands and enable voice interaction. For example, you’ll able to use voice commands to start and end meetings.

The Room 55 is built on the same platform as the Cisco Spark Room Kit and Room Kit Plus, which are some of the fastest ramping products in Cisco collaboration history. All Cisco Spark Room systems are Red Dot award winners, recognized for their leading design and welcoming aesthetics.

Like the rest of the portfolio, the Room 55 is ready for on-premises or cloud deployment, with full feature parity with our MX Series and SX Series devices. It’s perfect for the Cisco Spark Flex purchasing plan, providing you the flexibility to migrate to the Spark cloud platform now or in the future.

We’re accelerating delivery of the Room 55. As of today, it’s fully orderable and shipping with standard lead times. Now how about taking one for a spin?

See these capabilities live at IP Expo Nordic, where I’ll deliver a keynote and demonstrate the machine learning capabilities of Cisco Spark Room systems on September 21, in Stockholm.