Cisco umi, is just such a product.

What is umi?   umi is John Chamber’s delusional Telepresence vision for the consumer.

High Definition telepresence for the consumer, yep you read that right.  Video conference on your HD TV.  With tilt/pan/zoom support and it can even record it for you so you can play back those awkward family teleconferencing moments at a later date.

But wait, that’s cool? What’s dumb about it?   What’s dumb is that it’s $599 for the unit.  While that doesn’t seem all that bad, when you consider I paid less than that for most of my Hi-Def TV’s that’s kind of pricy.

For starters, it’s a consumer product, and Cisco Sucks at anything with a user interface that isn’t command line so expect this to be hard to use.

Second, you will need two of them, so that’s $1200.

For that money, I’d send my parents at the other end a PS3 and a PS3 Eye camera, total cost:  $350.   Then they’d have a blueray player and decent video game system. 

Best of all, NO SUBSCRIPTION fees.

that’s right, Cisco charges you $24.99 a month (1 year contract), or if you’re smart you’d opt for the annual plan for a whopping 9% savings at $274.99 Annually.

I don’t understand what you get for that?  A directory service so you can find your parents/grandparents on the other end?

So you’re looking at $599 x2 and $274.99 x2 for this?  That’s a lot of jack.

Also listed in the things you ‘Need’ are:

- TV with HDMI, while most people have that, I suspect none of my parents or grandparents do (yet), and I have little desire to telepresence with anyone else at this stage.

- Broadband, and a good one, with at least 1.5mb up.   That’s more rare than you might think and that’s just for 720p calls.  1080 requires 3.5mb UP.

Video is what it is, but I know few folks with that kind of reliable up-stream bandwidth.

Given that now FaceTime is free on all apple products and the plethora of other options out there, while they aren’t true HD are far more than adequate.

This is dumb Cisco, very very dumb.

My mission yesterday was simple.  Stop by a Game Stop and pick up a new ‘Turbo’ controller for the PS3.  This controller has a special ‘button’ that gives gives you 3 taps instead of one when you press a particular button.  (think of how useful this might be with a first person shooter and single shot weapons).

Now, it’s simple enough, I’ve talked to a few folks online and 3 people confirmed they picked up these controllers at Gamestop.  So yesterday during lunch I stopped in to pick one up.

Oh my, not so easy.

First all their good PS3 stuff is locked up, this includes basic things like controllers.  It was clear to me that they didn’t have what I needed.  They only had two controllers on display, the normal 6-Axis and some other MadCatz funky thing that wasn’t even wireless.

My mistake was asking.

There were two people working, one of them seemed quite frantic, the other well let’s just say customer service isn’t her thing.

I asked her if they had any other controllers for the Ps3.  I was looking for a specific turbo controller.  Specifically this one:

the conversation went about like this:

“She looked at me like I was from another planet and wandered over to where I had just looked (in the secured PS3 Peripherials case”

She said: ‘Turbo?’.  
Me: Yes, Turbo, you push a button once and the controller magically pushes the button for you 3x or more.
Her: Hrm, never hear of such a thing, opens case and gets MadCatz controller.  “This should do it she proclaims’.
Me: Uh, no this doesn’t have any ‘turbo’ features.
Her: Total look of confusion…  What’s it called again?
Me: Wireless Turbo Controller for PS3, I think it’s a Hori brand but I’m told the ones you guys sell aren’t branded.
Her: Pounds away at computer, and asks other associate.
Him: We have other controllers in that drawer.
Her: Opens drawer and pulls out some 3rd party controller with ‘Rumble Features’ and hands it to me. “Here ya go”.
Me: Looks at controller, this isn’t it either.
Her: The computer says we have them, but I don’t know where they are.   Looks at other associate.  Who is on the phone with someone saying he did the console counts this morning and everything was fine, but now all of a sudden (1.5 hours later) two PS2′s have gone missing.   He looks really nervous.
Me: It’s not the end of the world, if you don’t have it that’s fine, I need to get back to work.
Her: The computer says we have 2, let me call another store.
Me: (thinking WTF? what will another store do for you?)  I wander around the store for 15 more minutes.  She just seems lost.  She looks high and low, the goes into ‘ignore me mode’  finally I ask her.  So what’s the deal.
Her: I don’t know, the other store wasn’t helpful, I can’t find them.
Me: The computer says you have them and you simply can’t find them?
Her: Yep.  You might want to stop back later.

OK, so magically they will unhide themselves after ‘later?’

I ordered one online, which is what I should have done in the first place.   I am thankful though that she’s there and not somewhere else that actually requires customer service and knowledge about the products they sell.

Coincidentally, neither Target, nor Walmart had them either, even though Walmart Online shows that they carry them.