Google is steadily building a Chrome ecosystem in the PC arena. The company has now unveiled a Chromebox, equipped with everything needed for video conferences and meant for organizational meetings.
This nifty Chromebox for Meetings which comprises of a Core i7 ASUS Chromebox, together with a Boxee Box remote, a Jabra speakerphone and Logitech webcam, lacks a display. You have to plug the whole system with a display to kickstart videoconferencing.
Naturally, the system uses Hangouts at the back-end to allow instant connectivity with other people through video chat. Although the regular Hangouts version available online offers 10 simultaneous video streams, Chromebox for Meetings bumps up this limit to 15 video streams at the same time. Thanks to its use of Hangouts, any meetings propped up using Chromebox can be attended by users wielding any device which can run Hangouts.
The systems costs a cool $999, together with a subscription fee of $250 per year. This has been called steep by many businesses who say that they are already doing fine using other alternatives such as Skype. But Google’s Chromebox is a better all-rounder in terms of the needed accessories for a video conference.
It packs four USB ports, microphone with volume controls, built-in DSP, a complete QWERTY keyboard on the back of the remote control and a full HD camera. Setting up a meeting using Chromebox is instant and really easy. Since the system uses Chrome OS, Google has tried to keep things as simple as possible. It also packs Google Calendar so that you can keep track of your scheduled meetings.
Source: Chrome
Courtesy: TechCrunch
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