Back in October of 2010, networking kingpin Cisco announced a product
with the improbable name of ūmi. The company called it a teleprescence
device, but here’s what it really was: the world’s coolest videophone.
You connected it to your TV and your home network and used it to call
other ūmi owners, who showed up on your screen in remarkably life-like
1080p high-definition. It was like turning a big-screen HDTV into a
portal into somebody else’s living room.
Sadly, ūmi was also seriously pricey.
At first, it cost $599–plus another $24.99 a month for service. And
really, you needed to double those prices, because it was only of
interest if you knew at least one other household with a ūmi. Which,
come to think of it, you probably didn’t.
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