Zoom: Video Conferencing from Cars

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Thought the board would be interested in this press release that came out this morning around vehicles being equipped with video conferencing capability. At first blush this may sound ridiculous yet if we think out a few years to autonomous driving moving to the mainstream, one can see what now seems silly (like using a credit card to buy things over the internet did back in the 1990’s) may become a normal uneventful fact of life.

Initially the product will only allow folks in the vehicle to hear the audio of the teleconference and folks remote from the vehicle in stationary locations will be able to see people who are in the vehicle.

Here is the press release from OmniVision, Ambarella and Smart Eye:

The solution’s one-way video conferencing allows remote conference participants to see those in the vehicle, while the vehicle receives only audio to reduce driver distraction.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201110005510/en/Omn…

Frank - long ZM, see profile for all holdings

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Frank,

Very interesting.
Where do you see Zoom fitting in?

Thanks.

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this caught my attention, as I used to heavily follow NVDA and the chase for autonomous (AV) vehicles in the not too far off future.

Sadly we got ahead of ourselves a bit, but it does still seem inevitable.

Here is what I was thinking a couple years ago, and not much has changed my thinking on it yet:
https://discussion.fool.com/at-what-point-34081730.aspx

"Will Apple move into AVs…producing the “Apple Car”? I am not imagining the hardware ala NVDA, but rather the “experience” which I have talked about in previous posts. My vision of the AV future is that our vehicles, whether owned or shared, will be a style or flavor like we see with Android vs Apple today. If you are an Apple ecosystem guy, you will want your Beats and iPhone chargers and cradles. I think this is why Google went the path of Waymo…it was less about solving AV logistics and more about controlling the eyes and ears of the vehicle’s occupants.

Apple is apparently also (slowly as hell) ramping up their CTV efforts with original programming.

Apple has been frustratingly slow in innovation the past 5 years, imo…so it makes me wonder if the shoe will finally drop on some new business lines, like AV and CTV."

So while I could see Zoom catching on with certain auto makers that aren’t aligned to Apple or Google or Amazon “experiences” I do think the bigger winner in AV’s, outside of the chips/tech that allows for AV to work in the first place, will be the interior of the vehicle and the ecosystem it provides the passengers (since they aren’t, in theory, driving).

It does absolutely make sense to think that the future of AV’s, imo, would involve content consumption.

By the way, what powers the internet connectivity of AVs and imagine the millions of cars on the road all streaming. Granted that today many use their cell phones, whether for maps or as passengers in the car killing time on the road. But I see this as a marked increase in internet usage either way.

Dreamer

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Initially the product will only allow folks in the vehicle to hear the audio of the teleconference

Don’t we already have this? Most video conference system have phone dial in numbers.

and folks remote from the vehicle in stationary locations will be able to see people who are in the vehicle.

I’m not sure this is a good idea or not. First, you can already do this (with video both ways) using a phone and a phone mount. Second, if you are using a camera that is built-in to the car this may or may not be available or a good idea. Many of these are designed for the purpose of monitoring driver attention for autonomous driving or driver assist and probably wouldn’t always be available. Think about it, you are on a video conference and you want to disable/hamper your safety system in order to do it?

Yes, maybe a good idea for a car that is stopped.

Mike

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