Relatives of the 33 miners who have been trapped underground have finally been able to see their loved ones, thanks to video conferencing.

As reported by The Washington Post, over 100 relatives were shuttled to the hillside near the mouth of the mine so they could communication with the trapped men. They cheered as video conferencing technology allowed them to see and hear their loved ones for the first time.

Until now, they have only been able to communicate by telephone, and with relatives complaining that the government has lost mail they’ve send to the miners.

“I tried to be strong, but I cried at once,” said the daughter of a Bolivian football-star-turned-miner, who is the only non-Chilean stuck 700 metres underground. “He looks great. I forgot to tell him to go on camera more, and we were so excited we didn’t talk.”

She thanked the technicians for installing video conferencing technology, saying: “It was like he was in the living room, right here.”

The miners became trapped in August after the ground collapsed on them. According to The BBC, the miners became national heroes after contact was made with them on August 22nd, following 17 days of silence.

It was originally thought that it could take four months to rescue the miners, but thanks to a new plan they could resurface as soon as November. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the rescue operation has already got underway, however only 40 metres have been drilled so far, which leaves a further 660 metres left to drill before they can be rescued.

A new study exploring how the UK can cut back on its annual carbon dioxide transmissions by focusing on the transport sector has been published, predicting how the use of technology such as video conferencing as well as financial and behavioural changes could help create a near 100% reduction in CO2 emissions from transport.

“Towards a Zero Carbon Vision for UK Transport”, written by researchers at the Stockholm Environment Institute, looks at what steps can be taken to cut back on the 27% of the UK’s CO2 emissions that stem from transport. This number is predicted to grow faster than any other sector of the economy with increased use of cars, road freight and aviation.

The report compares the predicted outcome for carbon reduction by 2050 under a “business as usual” scenario, where little to no changes are made, with that of a “Maximum Impact (MI)” scenario. This is a slightly implausible scenario where all possible interventions are made to achieve a target goal of “near zero carbon” transport system for the UK.

Whilst many aspects of the report are concerned with freight and local travel, section 4.4 “Aviation” details how the substitution of information technology can help contribute towards reducing the 14% of all travel conducted by business, in turn reducing the amount of overall air travel.

One report cited, Pamlin & Szomolanyi 2008, suggests that if European companies cut their business travel by 20% and used video conferencing in its place, “We would save 22 million tonnes of CO2 each year, equivalent to taking one third of the UK’s cars off the road.”

Another survey cited, ‘Travelling Light’, by the WWF-UK found that many companies have a “green” corporate policy that incorporates the use of telepresence and video conferencing services in place of business travel. This same survey indicates that the major obstacle to greater use of video conferencing is a lack of interoperability between different systems and a need for investment in broadband infrastructure.

In the “Maximum Impact” scenario detailed by the researchers based on these previous reports, aviation business travel activity is assumed to have fallen by 20% by 2050. 2.8% of this – a statistically significant figure equivalent to 1.7 million tonnes of CO2 - is due to video conferencing being used in substitution of air travel.

Also, though the report is clear that video conferencing and other technological substitutions could only lead to a small reduction in CO2 emissions from the aviation industry in and of themselves, they are an important part of an overall strategy. When taken together with other measures such as railway substitution, air traffic management and improvements in aircraft technology, the overall reduction in the MI scenario is -56% relative to the 59.9 CO2 emissions seen in the 2050 ‘business as usual’ scenario.

The telepresence industry needs to develop a set of unified standards for interoperability in order to help drive the market for video conferencing forward, says the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

The ITU has announced that it wants to help different telepresence companies work together to allow the market to grow. Currently video conferencing services are broadly divided between older standards and the “evolution” of telepresence, with many products based on established communications protocols lacking interoperability due to proprietary extensions.

Whilst Cisco, one of the largest developers of video conference technology, has been working on interoperable standards for some time, the ITU has called for the industry as a whole to work together to prevent proprietary systems from becoming commonplace in the market.

“We don’t expect each end of a phone call to be dependent on the manufacturer of the phone being the same,” says Malcolm Johnson, Director of the ITU’s Telecommunication Standardisation Bureau. “The same should be true for telepresence.”

“Anyone who has used a telepresence system will testify to its remarkable quality…however, proprietary solutions have stifled the market. ITU’s standards initiative will allow us all to profit from this remarkable technology.”

According to the ITU’s press release, their standards initiative will be focused upon improving interoperability between telepresence technology from different manufacturers. It aims to make sure that multiple video and audio streams can be presented coherently so that eye contact, gestures and other aspects of a life-like, face-to-face experience are conveyed properly even when set-ups differ on each side of the conversation.

The Scottish government has committed to reducing a fifth of business flights within the next five years, reports Public Sector Travel.

They have signed up to WWF-UK’s One in Five Challenge, which helps companies and public sector bodies reduce their carbon emissions and costs generated by business travel. It asks them to pledge to reduce business travel by 20%.

The scheme was only launched last year, but already 12 companies have signed up to look for alternatives to flying for business meetings. The majority of these save money and carbon emissions by using video conferencing and using other methods of transportation that are low carbon, such as rail.

“The Scottish government is proud to be the first government organisation to sign up to WWF’s One in Five challenge.” said Stewart Stevenson, minister for transport and climate change, in an official statement. “As an organisation, we are taking action to ensure that, where business journeys are necessary, we travel sustainably.”

He said the government flew half a million miles less in 2008/09 and have considerably reduced their air travel costs, which dropped by almost a quarter. “We are also making increasing use of video conference facilities, when appropriate, instead of travelling to meetings in the UK,” said Mr Stevenson.

WWF-UK says that businesses can remain competitive and cut back on travel “demonstrating that in the future, those companies that change their working practises will be better adapted in a carbon constrained world.” They also explain that members have made massive carbon savings and improved their work-life balance of staff who spend more time at home.

Another company to sign up to the challenge is Sky. Fiona Ball, head of environment at Sky, said: “Sky has been taking action on climate change for five years now and through embracing technology such as video conferencing, we cut our business air travel emissions by 35% over the past three years.”

Relying on emails to conduct business communications may be a fast way of operating but it’s not an effective one, claims a new study from the University of Illinois.

According to a study by Gregory Northcraft, a professor of executive leadership who specialises in workplace collaboration, speaking face-to-face is a vital part of building an effective relationship. Time magazine reports that Northcraft’s report indicates that reliance on “lean communication” such as email, where only one form of information is sent between correspondents, strips away the personal interaction that builds trust.

In a business setting, trust is a vital component of an effective team effort, particularly where colleagues are working independently towards a shared goal.

The researchers, Northcraft and Kevin Rockmann of George Mason University, studied the productivity and interaction of 200 students divided into different teams and given set tasks. The study revealed that those using email were the least able to get together and complete their task, whilst those who had spoken face-to-face via video conferencing were more productive and more likely to meet their responsibilities.

Northcraft thinks this is because e-mail doesn’t let participants see how engaged their colleagues are, encouraging mutual negligence. “If I don’t think you are taking a task seriously, then I won’t either. And email doesn’t allow us to verify that you are taking it seriously”, he says.

Seeing the other participant generally led to more honesty, say the researchers. “We found that in both video conferencing and in face to face interactions, people were not willing to lie”, said Professor Rockmann.

Strikes could bring chaos to business travel in Britain as members of the Unite union voted to strike following disputes over pay.

As reported by The BBC, the strikes would force all six of BAA’s airports to shut because essential staff, such as firefighters would partake. BAA owns and operates Heathrow, Stansted, Southampton, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports.

Unite and BAA have agreed a meeting to discuss the dispute, with a possible strike date to be announced if talks are unsuccessful. The union only has to give a week’s notice of strike action, however analysts predict it will be the bank holiday weekend in August.

This further highlights the uncertainty experienced by the travel industry and could encourage more businesses to  adopt video conferencing to reduce their reliance on travel.

Video conferencing would allow businesses to hold virtual meetings without facing the risk of cancelled flights or travel chaos disrupting meetings or even forcing them to be cancelled. It also eliminates the risk of an employee, if they manage to reach their destination, being stranded there. That can prove costly, either in terms of trying to get them home, paying for temporary accommodation, or a loss in business output.

The threat of strike action centres on a pay dispute, reports Reuters. Unite said members voted three-to-one in favour of industrial action.

However, a BAA spokesman said that fewer than half of those eligible to vote had done so. “We do not believe this result provides a clear mandate for strike action,” he said. The strike was condemned by the prime minister, who said it would do “nothing but harm”.

A British casino chain has successfully reduced business travel between locations thanks to video conferencing.

According to an official statement, Aspers Group adopted video conferencing services across its HR, finance and business development teams in London, Newcastle, Northampton and Swansea.

“We examined the cost of group business travel; particularly the cost of personnel commuting between our London HQ and our regional sites,” said Nick Snowden, IT director at Aspers. “We were already spending a lot on flights and rail travel up and down the country, and this was rapidly increasing with our geographic expansion. In a bid to make better use of technology to help control our growth, we looked at the video conferencing market.”

Aspers Group uses video conferencing during board meetings. According to the statement, in the coming months video conferencing could be implemented for nationwide training.

Terry Dwyer, who helped Aspers Group choose video conferencing facilities, said that, although the technology hadn’t been in place long, they were already saving a lot of time and money when it comes to business travel. ”Aspers Group had implemented an authority-to-travel policy that involved employees having to apply for permission to spend on transport,” explained Dwyer. “This was designed to engender cultural change and encourage people to consider video conferencing first. In reality though, once users have experienced video meetings they have spontaneously evangelised it internally.”

The scheme was piloted between the head office in London and the office in Newcastle. It immediately saved 2-3 journeys every week between the two cities, and was then rolled out across the main offices.

Video conferencing and networking giant Cisco surprised many at its recent Las Vegas conference by unveiling its latest product – an enterprise focused tablet computer.

The Cisco Cius aims to extend the productivity benefits of the company’s collaboration applications to a mobile platform. Running on a variation of the Android operating system, the tablet offers mobile computing and content sharing capabilities as well as full interoperability with Cisco’s Telepresence technology.

An open platform, the Cius is targeted at linking individual employees more effectively with central departments over a real-time, secure connection. Although users will be able to video conference through the small tablet device’s HD camera and audio pickup, the tablet also has the useful ability to physically dock or connect via Wi-Fi to existing video conferencing facilities, as well as a desktop PC.

This means that users could record videos and photos or work on files or documents on their Cius tablet, then share them with other participants directly during a video conference held at a Cisco Telepresence Studio. The device will go on trial with customers in the third quarter of 2010 with a view to becoming generally available in the first quarter of 2011.

Tony Bates, the senior VP and general manager of Cisco’s enterprise, commercial and small business arm said:”Cisco Cius epitomises how the network is changing the way we live, work, learn and play.”

The U.S government has pledged to make huge changes to the working practises and procedures of federal agencies in an effort to cut down on carbon emissions, with ambitious plans to make greater use of video conferencing to cut down on travel.

The Federal Times reports that the federal government has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions from indirect sources – e.g. employee travel, waste disposal – by at least 13% by 2020. Working from the 2008 baseline of 16.8 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, this would see the government reduce its carbon footprint by 2.19 million metric tons.

This target is in addition to a pledge made in January to cut emissions directly resulting from federal agency operations of purchases such as energy use by 28% by 2020.

In draft guidance released by the administration, White House federal environmental executive Michelle Moore said that employee travel was the largest indirect contributor to the government’s carbon footprint.

To cut down on these the government has proposed a massive expansion of the use of video conferencing services in the workplace. Federal employees would be encouraged to work from home, using collaboration software to work on documents whilst conducting routine meetings via video conference.

Two agencies have already announced that they will be focusing their efforts on cutting travel for employees, the Agriculture Department – where nearly 90% of indirect emissions stem from travel and commuting – and the Labour Department. The former has said it will curb the practise of flying regional managers to Washington, with its chief of environmental management Jeff Goodman stating that “we think we can be a little more aggressive on the business side of it with video conferencing, virtual meetings.”

“There are a lot of different ways agencies are going to be able to meet their goals,” said Michelle Moore. “It’s really about what agencies can do to support the employees in this effort.”

Cisco’s latest business video conferencing package aims to bring video conferencing solutions to the global events industry, helping event planners and executives extend the impact of trade shows and conferences.

Announced last week, Cisco’s ‘Collaboration for Events’ takes the companies Telepresence video conferencing technology and enterprise social software to help the events industry reach beyond the physical limitations of an events venue. The company hopes that these network based technologies will help organisers conduct interactive events on both physically and virtually.

One key benefit of video conferencing for the events industry will be the ability to circumvent the problems of traditional in-person events. By using high definition Telepresence suites to conduct keynote speeches and discussion panels, events planners will be able to overcome scheduling problems for both speakers and attendees.

Cisco also claims that the new package will help the events industry measure and increase its Return On Investment (ROI). They say that not only will the technology help streamline pre and post-event planning by sharing material and schedules to agencies and providers, it will also help drive interactions between speakers and attendees in multiple ways as well as offering the potential for significant carbon reductions associated with business travel via virtual participation.

The company’s own use of the package at its Cisco Live! event saw more than 5,000 people from 28 countries attend virtually. When used at it’s internal annual global sales meeting, Cisco says that it resulted in the cost per attendee dropping from $4050 to $520, with the company predicting that if fully implemented it could see overall attendance costs at corporate events drop by 78%.

“Today’s global technology-savvy audiences, coupled with rising economic pressures are driving the need for radical transformation in how we think of meetings, events and trade shows,” says Rick Hutley, vice president of Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group.

“By applying collaboration technology capabilities to events, organisations can reduce costs, boost attendance, enrich the attendee experience and greatly increase the event’s impact and all while reducing environmental impact.”