About 4 weeks ago we activated the jabber server on one of our OS-X 
servers. This is a technology that provides video and audio chat on the 
Macintosh platform.
I have used this technology successfully to connect from Beijing to 
Hanover NH, from Beijing to Berlin, Germany. We have also used this 
technology to conference simultaneously from here with Brown and 
Columbia University using a split screen. The technology currently 
allows up to 4 different sites to be connected. Just last week we used a 
classroom with projection here to conference with an office at MIT. The 
only equipment here was an iSight camera camera connected to the 
computer in this classroom and a Mac laptop in the office at MIT.

Jabber services are free - no need for a yahoo, .mac, Skype, or AOL 
account.

The potential for this technology is enormous. It even works on wireless 
networks. And it is very simple to set up.

Otmar Foelsche

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Language Learning (http://iallt.org/), and The Consortium for Language
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Join IALLT at http://iallt.org.
Otmar K. Foelsche, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask])
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