Teleporters hold a long-distance reunion

Lance Cpl. Jose Jasso stood at a Teleportec monitor in San Diego and talked with his mom, dad, wife, sisters and cousins in Dallas—family he hasn’t seen since he signed up a year ago and was sent to Camp Pendleton, Calif.The young Marine’s family had gathered for the videoconference. As he watched them in three dimensions, his eyes welled up. “You need to grow your hair,” said his wife, trying to cheer Jasso up. “You look skinnier.”The exchange was part of a demonstration at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association’s AFCEA West 2002 conference in San Diego last week. Teleportec was touted as a sophisticated form of videoconferencing, in which more people on both ends of the transmission can participate. Electronic Data Systems Corp. has joined with Teleportec Inc. of Dallas to sell the product in the Defense market. Beam splitters project full-sized images of participants over a T1 connection with full-duplex audio, EDS vice president Phil Barnett said. “I see this as the preferred method of communicating globally,” he said.