How Intel WiDi can boost your business meetings, presentations

"Oh my! What a coincidence. There's coincidentally someone of EVERY demographic at the meeting! And we're having SO MUCH FUN!"

Just one more 'gotcha' for those considering trying WiDi on your business windows laptop.  Some desktop security software (McAfee, Symantec, etc) may need configurations applied to the local firewall settings in order for WiDi to work. The Intel website has documentation on the ports you need to configure.  Best to have a chat with your IT department if you have one....

Friendly feedback for Chris & Dave....

Guys, I actually don't mind some of the sponsored content on AusBT (in limited amounts) provided it's labelled as such; but this one does have a strong whiff of PR release / "advertorial".

Your readers do understand the need to have paid marketing to subsidize a site we all find helpful and interesting; I think the most appropriate place to embed this sort of marketing is on your occasional promo emails, which are introduced with the clear and honest disclaimer:

Thank you for subscribing to the Australian Business Traveller newsletter. Each week we also send out a message from a commercial partner on a topic that's relevant to business and/or travel. Their support, and yours, helps keep Australian Business Traveller running as a free website.

These paid marketing emails are infrequent enough that I always take genuine interest in the product being marketed, and nobody has to suspect a motive or question integrity.

Please and thanks!

Hi Jay. This is editorial, not advertorial in any form. We're doing a little more tech each week, and I felt WiDi was an aspect of some of the latest Intel chips which was little-known but would prove quite useful for the many business travellers among our readership who have to make presentations.

Hi Dave!

Thanks for the reply, I know you guys read all the comments.

Q: Did you actually get your hands on the product to use when reviewing this, or did you produce this editorial based on WiDi marketing materials alone? The latter is certainly how it reads.

I expect the inevitable down-votes from other users (such is life), but as a member of your regular reader base I'd put my vote towards steering AWAY from this very murky advertorial territory. One of the reasons I quite like AusBT is that you have a veneer of impartiality. Technology reviews are handy when they're real and critical, but when it reads like a press release it detracts from the great stuff you guys usually produce!

Cheers!

Jay:

1. Don't get too concerned about downvotes!

2. We didn't get hands-on with WiDi, opting instead to provide a quick breakdown of what it is, what it does and how you can make us of it. People looking for deep tech reviews will find plenty of websites dedicated to tech, and we're not going to replicate that.

Thanks Dave.

Perhaps the problem is the way the article is framed from the outset. The first three paragraphs would be very well at home in a Brand Power infommercial. "Are you tired of cables in your meetings? There must be a better way... Well now there is!" 

When you give it that flavour of wording, you (perhaps unintentionally) give it the appearance of having AusBT's endorsement of that product. Perhaps this sort of technology announcement (if it's going to be a regular feature) needs to go under a new category for press releases instead of tech editorials (editorials traditionally being the domain of a writers experience or personal opinion).

Example, re: the above. No mention of the frustrations road warriors will encounter... such as that "Actionec Screenbeam Pro" add-on requires external AC power to function. So instead of eliminating cables, you've actually added an EXTRA cable to the entire equation.

Not particularly handy if there's insufficient AC points at your meeting... Or if you're overseas, and only have one adapter with you for your laptop charger.

If you guys want to write about it, I want to hear from you: Does it actually work as it claims to? Other users here claim to have had issues streaming HDMI from less conventional devices, such as tablets. What is the transmit range? Is it glitchy audio or choppy video, as is sooooo common with these devices? Mouse latency, or resolution issues?

The thing is... When you guys review air travel, you experience it first-hand and discuss the things you don't like. I'd like to see that more in these technology reviews, or it isn't going to be useful to your readers.

You're right: we can easily read plenty of tech press releases anywhere on the web, we perhaps don't need AusBT so much for that... If you guys physically get your hands on some technology and then think it's great for travellers? Now THAT's the stuff you AusBT reader base wants to hear about!  :-)

Again, this is just friendly feedback... I wouldn't comment if I didn't think it would improve the content on a site I very much enjoy.

Cheers!

Thanks for sharing those thoughts, Jay.

Hi Dinkydie: this is editorial content, if it was any form of 'advertising' (eg sponsored content) it'd carry a clear declaration to that effect.

Thanks David. Well, the reason I asked was (a) the text sounded like an advertisement to me and (b) there was this Lufthansa First Class advertising piece a few weeks ago that  initially was not labeled as such. Hence I was unsure with this article.