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DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

venturebeat.com

21–30 of 51 posts

Re: DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

#21
post #9

Can they include a pleasant "walking" noise (or something more abstract) so that it isn't sneaking up on you all the time? It looks a bit too sneaky in this video.

The car sounds from The Jetsons

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdWswvLPdE0

Re: DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

#22

Very cool. How about a bunch of these located in places like the Louvre, the British Museum, that become available to rent when the museums are closed to physically-present tourists? The timezones work out great for people in the US, and the museums have nothing to lose since it's all incremental revenue.

When I saw the use case of a couple settling down to look at a (likely non-HD) video... of large paintings... on a 10" display... from a robot... that you have to drive yourself... - well, I laughed. Yes, it sounds cool, for all of about five seconds, until you realise how irritating it would be. Presumably it wouldn't be free, either.

One could argue that this would be great for disabled people. Maybe so, but that wasn't what was shown. However, when they hook up a 360 degree high-def camera and feed it through to a next-gen Oculus Rift VR headset, yeah, then we'll talk.

Re: DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

#23

This reminds of that board meeting scene in Demolition Man with all the monoliths with screens each projecting a participant's face on them. It seems interesting but I wonder if people would welcome this. Having an iPad with my boss' face on it rolling behind me at work feels creepy.

You might not welcome it, but your boss would probably be keen - and he'll be paying :-)

Re: DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

#24
post #17

This reminds of that board meeting scene in Demolition Man with all the monoliths with screens each projecting a participant's face on them. It seems interesting but I wonder if people would welcome this. Having an iPad with my boss' face on it rolling behind me at work feels creepy.

For reference, this is the scene: http://ispr.info/files/2011/07/DemolitionMan.jpg

That's the one!

Re: DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

#28
post #3

Until you can flick your "head" in the direction of someone who just spoke outside of your field of vision, these will continue to feel like you're at a meeting in a neck brace.

A fisheye lens mounted on the ipad might help there. It's just about high enough res that you might get away with rectifying the image to get rid of the distortion at the human end.

yes, exactly. but then the remote audience will miss the cue that you are turning your gaze - so perhaps it can do both: turn on it's axis and rotate in the already transferring fisheye stream.
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