2:15 PM -- Teliris Ltd. is joining Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) in the home telepresence market, with units expected to be available in October. The news was part of Teliris's PR blitz for Infocomm last week.

That could be slightly ahead of Cisco's schedule, which calls for home telepresence models to ship in time for the holidays, as executive vice president Rob Lloyd told the Reuters Global Technology Summit in May.

One big difference is the price: $500 for Cisco's version, compared with about $5,000 for Teliris's. I don't yet know what's included in both packages, though; Cisco's price doesn't include a monthly service fee, for instance.

Home telepresence seemed like an extreme idea a few years ago, but like Cisco, Teliris says a normal broadband connection would be enough to run the application. At CES, Cisco was saying 1.5 Mbit/s is all you need. (See Cisco Brings Telepresence Home.)

One thing I don't recall Cisco mentioning is 3D telepresence. Teliris says it's got that too, which means in offices around the world, employees could soon be doing gleeful Dr. Tongue impressions.

The application for 3D telepresence seems to be to share complex objects -- graphic designers could be an audience there, I'm thinking -- but the real treat would be to see colleagues in crystal clarity wearing those fashionable glasses.

— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading