I saw Casio’s Virtual Presenter system up close earlier this year at CES. It's a specially designed screen crafted to look like a live presenter. The concept of a virtual presenter in digital signage applications is not new-check out the virtual TSA's I wrote about in an earlier post. At that time, although excited about the technology, I could not help but ponder the expense of the environmentally unfriendly mercury laden replacement lamps necessary to maintain such an installation.

It would seem that Casio has made some huge inroads as their line of Signature projectors provides the lowest cost of ownership in the industry. These lamp-free LED-laser hybrid projectors now have a life expectancy of up to 20,000 hours and a warranty of up to 5 years. Even more impressive, our editors have just given the Casio XJ-1750 our Highly Rated award.

This technology would work in a variety of settings from education to trade shows. I can think of a lot of companies who might like to hire virtual sales reps who come without many demands and are "on" all the time.