computer science

Lifesize

Lifesize is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Lifesize rather than just read about it. In short: Lifesize was a video and audio telecommunications company in the United States which provided high definition videoconferencing endpoints and accessories, touchscreen conference room phones, a cloud-based video collaboration platform, and omnichannel contact center solutions under their CxEngage product line. Lifesize's headquarters was located in Austin, Texas.

Lifesize — illustration

Key takeaways

Lifesize belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lifesize to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lifesize from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lifesize was a video and audio telecommunications company in the United States which provided high definition videoconferencing endpoints and accessories, touchscreen conference room phones, a cloud-based video collaboration platform, and omnichannel contact center solutions under their CxEngage product line. Lifesize's headquarters was located in Austin, Texas. Its Europe, Middle East and Africa regional office were located in Munich, Germany.

History Lifesize was founded by Craig Malloy and Michael Kenoyer in January 2003. It operated in "stealth mode" under the name KMV Technologies from 2003 to 2005. Investors in Lifesize included Redpoint Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, Pinnacle Ventures, Austin Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Tenaya Capital. The company name change to Lifesize Communications was unveiled at the Interop trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada in May 2005. This is also when Lifesize announced its first product, Lifesize Room, which was the first high definition video conferencing endpoint brought to market. Malloy was a product manager at VTEL Corporation until 1996, when he left and founded ViaVideo. ViaVideo was acquired by Polycom in 1998. Malloy was the senior vice president and general manager of the Video Communication Division of Polycom through 2002, when he left to found his own high definition video telecommunications company. In 2009, Logitech acquired Lifesize for US$405 million in cash. Lifesize then became a division of Logitech, but continued to operate as a separate division led by Malloy. Malloy served as the Lifesize CEO from 2003 – 2012, and resumed the role in February 2014. Lifesize was spun out of Logitech in early 2016 and is privately owned. In March 2020, Lifesize announced a merger with Serenova, a contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS) provider. In August 2020, Lifesize announced the acquisition of Kaptivo, a digital collaboration company based in Cambridge, UK. In February 2021, former 8x8 President, Kim Niederman was appointed CEO. In 2023, Lifesize launched CxConcierge, a live customer service solution that allows companies to offer instant customer support assistance via on-demand video calls. On May 17, 2023, Lifesize filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. LifeSize's assets were partially sold to Enghouse Systems, a Canadian, publicly traded technology services company which has rolled up other older video conferencing businesses and related services, such as Vidyo. Lifesize converted their case to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation on October 10, 2023.

Technology LifeSize was the first company to bring real time, high definition videoconferencing to market. With the introduction of the Cisco TelePresence product LifeSize through its partners also competed in telepresence. The company brought their first video conferencing "codec" to market in 2005, called LifeSize Room. Lifesize product portfolio includes high definition endpoints and accessories, NAT/firewall traversal, touchscreen conference room phones, ISDN gateways, Multipoint Control Units and management systems, as well as mobile video conferencing software and a cloud-based IaaS offering for video conferencing. Lifesize also offers a recording and sharing service called Lifesize Cloud Amplify. In 2016, Lifesize brought huddle room systems to the market with Smartframing camera technology embedded. LifeSize's technology was very advanced for its time. In order to deliver high definition, live video conferencing at the time LifeSize utilized parts from Texas Instruments, Phillips Semiconductor, and Broadcom. Encoding and decoding had to be accomplished by entirely different silicone. The products were very expensive in their first release, with the first LifeSize Room priced at over $12,000 USD LifeSize also had to develop its own image pipeline for its cameras, even designing the entire camera itself from the sensor up.

See also Videoconferencing Telecollaboration Teleconference Videotelephony

References

External links Official website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lifesize

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lifesize claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lifesize before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lifesize ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lifesize

In research: Lifesize appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lifesize in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lifesize is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Companies based in Austin, Texas, Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023, Companies that filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2023, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lifesize outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Lifesize in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lifesize means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lifesize out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lifesize in simple terms?

Why does Lifesize matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lifesize?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lifesize.