There’s a self-help aphorism I keep coming back to that goes, “The universe will keep sending you the same lesson until you finally learn it.” Human nature is what it is; sometimes, even when you think you’ve learned a lesson, you may need to relearn it again. One of the things I’ve learned over time […]

As a techy person, I have always been intrigued by the Consumer Electronics Show. It has always been a mix of amazing new technology and useless new technology. I am surprised, though, that the show does not get much coverage in our industry, particularly in the education sector. I think there are a couple of […]

By Sophie Gustafson Exertis Almo Over the past few years, interest in commissioning services has transitioned from desire to demand. As the final step in the system integration process, commissioning services serve as the last piece of effort before the project goes into live production — and therefore, the end user’s ownership. These finishing touches […]

Wow. Wowowowowow. The show is officially over. We did it! Our final video count? 2,128. It’s been years since we shot this many videos and I am so impressed with how hard our team has worked to achieve such a feat. Let’s talk about ISE for a second, shall we? The show officially announced that […]

Well, somehow we’ve made it to Day Three. And if you’re thinking, “the crowds may have thinned now,” you’re very wrong. The crowds have not thinned in most halls — it’s stayed consistently busy. If you have to get across Hall 3 for any reason, good luck. I actually spoke to Mike Blackman, managing director […]

Hello, everyone! Welcome to ISE 2024 and therefore, your ISE 2024 Day Two Daily Raff article. I’ll be honest. Today, I mostly ran around the show floor (quite frequently between Halls 3 and 5) and GOOD LORD. Hall 3 was so packed, you couldn’t move. It was almost like a general admission concert. And maybe […]

On Tuesday, Jan. 30, I attended the first keynote of ISE 2024. This was extremely exciting and one of the first household names (since my time) I’ve seen give a keynote address at this show. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is a journalist turned documentary filmmaker turned big blockbuster director. I was so excited to hear about her […]

Hello, everyone! Welcome back to our ISE 2024 coverage and officially Day One of the show! What a first day it has been. I made sure to carve out some time to run around and grab some information on some newly released products, I interviewed executives at Shure, Xyte and Lenovo and I even met […]

New research from Jabra found that the return to office continues to impact working preferences — especially among Generation Z (those age 26 and under). The research was quite surprising in some cases but also predictable in others. Some unwritten rules seem to have been overturned as the newest generation enters our working world. Flexibility […]

Hi, everybody! Welcome to our ISE 2024 coverage and your first Daily Raff of the show. (If you are new here, Gary sends a show wrap-up newsletter each day called “The Daily Riff” and we named this blog series to match. Get it? Riff-Raff? Because that’s what Gary and I are? (Gary, if you’re reading […]

On Jan. 28, most of the rAVe team was spending their first full day in Barcelona, enjoying free time and exploring the city. We chose to end our day by visiting Casa Batlló, on the iconic Passeig de Gràcia avenue. A special event to mark the beginning of ISE 2024, there would be a projection […]

Usually, Disney is very secretive with the new tech it develops but, in this case, it wants brands to make it better, faster and start integrating with it in real-life VR environments. It’s called HoloTile. So, here’s the scenario … You develop a VR or XR game — one where the players wear either a […]

Well it’s that time of year again. No it’s not Rabbit Season, it’s not even Duck Season, it is Spin Season. CES kicked off the year, NAMM is happening now, ISE is next week, NAB in the Spring and then Infocomm in June.  It’s a steady flow of industry shows and product announcements, some of […]

Integrated Systems Europe 2024 is right around the corner, and there is no shortage of things to keep you entertained. Once you’re on the show floor for a while, though, you may find yourself eager to take a load off of your feet. Here is a quick list of educational sessions you should consider attending […]

In late 2022, ChatGPT was released and the expectations were sky high. The technology was amazing. You could ask it to write a paper on Shakespeare in the language of a pirate and ten seconds later it pops out. You could ask it to program a Crestron control system with an Epson projector, and again, […]

Every so often I check in on the state of what’s still being called “Smart Home” tech and I find myself coming away with a sense of déjà vu. Or, perhaps more specifically, a sense that “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” or “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” […]

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, houses of worship were forced to make some changes as many saw a decrease in physical church attendance but an increase in online viewership. But now, in 2024, what were the lasting impacts? Are in-person worship services being fully replaced by virtual services and livestreams? According to Paul […]

On Oct. 1, 2023, a small percentage of 23AndMe user profile information was improperly accessed and downloaded from individual 23andMe.com accounts on its website. The company found out after an anonymous hacker began advertising “millions” of stolen genetic profiles that were supposedly from 23andMe customer accounts. The profiles included emails, photos, gender, date of birth […]

In 2017, the audiovisual trade organization known as InfoComm formally changed its name to the Audio Visual and Integrated Experiences Association or AVIXA. The addition of that little “X” caused some consternation among many in the industry at the time, and there are still some industry Luddites who take shots at the idea of adding […]

I am a native Mainer. I was born in Lewiston, attended school, got married, had children, work and live in the city. For me, there is no other place that I will ever be able to call home like Lewiston, Maine. Infamously, the country got to know the name of Lewiston on Oct. 25 as […]

I haven’t done one of these in a bit: reminiscing about my often surreal experiences working in retail. So here are two unrelated anecdotes I thought about recently for the first time in a long while. At one point, I worked for The Bay. For you Americans, The Bay is Canada’s version of Sears. Except […]

By Scarlett Woodford Futuresource Consulting As corporates continue to implement return-to-office mandates, next-generation collaboration technology will become a key component of the post-COVID office environment. A new report from Futuresource Consulting shows that corporate AV budgets were squeezed during 2022 and into 2023, and the situation was exacerbated by chipset price hikes and supply chain […]

In September, AMX announced a new line of controllers. The most interesting thing about these controllers is, per AMX’s press release, the ability to “simultaneously process a virtually unlimited number of scripts written in JavaScript, Python or Groovy and natively support Low-Code development with Node-RED.” I have written before on the problems with walled gardens, […]

Remember that one guy in your classes who would ask the professor a “question?” I used quotes because their question was always a thinly veiled excuse to expound and fill up the air with their own opinions. I never liked that guy when I was in school. As a result, I try to avoid being […]

There’s someone who is betting that lots of European companies need a new AV brand. The multibillion-dollar Econocom Group launches Gather, its new AV brand. As one of Europe’s leading tech providers, the publicly listed group announces Gather will create intelligent audiovisual, unified communications and information technology solutions from state-of-the-art collaboration spaces to smart digital […]

I am on a mail list that has recently had a thread about whether dedicated computers are still necessary. There are several arguments for and against this, although in this particular thread most of the arguments seemed to be for removing the dedicated computers. For some background, higher education has a long history of providing […]

In my last rAVe column, I summarized some recent cyberattacks on MGM and Caesars’ casinos. In that article, I tried to drop some social engineering science and some lessons learned from Scattered Spider (aka 0ktapus, UNC3944, Starfraud, Scatter Swine, Muddled Libra and most recently, Octo Tempest). I warned #AVtweeps about their aggressive social engineering Tactics, […]

We made it! Day Two of DSE and LDI. If you were at the show(s) this year, you may have noticed some familiar faces video shooting on the show floor this time. That’s because it was entirely our full-time staff! We each had a video section, and I was humbled by the fact that I […]

Black Friday has come and gone. Not for the first time, I am struck by the differences between working in distribution and frontline retail. Chatting with one of my vendor contacts on Friday, I reflected that Black Friday was a quiet day for me. The only emails I received on Black Friday — both of […]

Hello everyone! You might know me as the managing editor of rAVe [PUBS], co-host of rAVe [TV] or, if you attended DSE and/or LDI 2023, perhaps you know me as that woman who came around and strong-armed you into shooting product videos. Just kidding! I know you all secretly love being the star of a […]

As DSE and LDI are swiftly approaching on Dec. 3-5, we’ve crafted a guide to help you make the most of your time at both shows. We consulted with the respective show directors of DSE and LDI, along with input from past attendees and exhibitors, to compile the must-see highlights from these co-located trade shows. […]

Rewind 10 years ago, and the stack of hardware in a basic conference room included a display, an audiovisual matrix switcher, an audio amplifier, a control processor, a DSP, a hardware based codec, a PTZ camera, ceiling or table microphones, wall or ceiling speakers, and a proprietary touch panel. All that was held together with […]