Catchup concept from Microsoft Research, think "Meeting DVR's" (or more likely, "Sorry, I was sleeping... what did you just say?" device)

FastCompany - If You Doze During A Meeting, Microsoft's Got Your Back

"The new conferencing system will get you up to speed so fast you can pick up the thread of the meeting even as it drones on, and on, and on...

...

Do you have low-grade narcolepsy, or a low threshold for boredom? Do you want to keep your job? Then Microsoft has just the thing for you.

Of course, snoozing through meetings is a time-honored business tradition, and it's why we've evolved meeting minutes. But what if you really didn't mean to nod off during a particular meeting--and you want to get up to speed so quickly that you can participate in what's left of it?

"We developed an Accelerated Instant Replay (AIR) Conferencing system for videoconferencing that enables users to catch up on missed content while the meeting is ongoing," Microsoft Research announces today (with my italics), together with a study evaluating the system.

..."

Microsoft Research - Catchup: a useful application of time-travel in meetings

"People are often required to catch up on information they have missed in meetings, because of lateness or scheduling conflicts. Catching up is a complex cognitive process where people try to understand the current conversation without access to prior discussion. We develop and evaluate a novel Catchup audio player that allows "time-travel". It automatically identifies the gist of what was missed, allowing people to join the meeting late and still participate effectively. In a lab study, we evaluated people"s understanding of meetings they had partly missed, by asking questions about meeting content. We tested whether providing Catchup gist overcomes the potential disadvantage that people must join even later - because catching up takes time. Catchup users understood meetings 70% better than controls who simply joined late. They were more confident of their understanding and indicated a positive attitude towards the tool. We are currently exploring more general applications of the time-travel approach. " [GD:Description leached in full]

ZOMG... I'll take three... :P

 

Snaps from the PDF;