

Boy 'lived as a robot' for two months [video] - ColinWright
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22125682

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ChuckMcM
Would help to say (video) in the title, that said its a pretty content free
piece on tele-presense robotics with the hook of a young man who used one
during post marrow transplant isolation to communicate with the outside world.
As bandwidth improves these will improve. Having seen the difference between
using a 720P web cam essentially as the remote view sensor and three 1080p
cameras fused into a wrap around 180 degree view, the latter is clearly a more
"immersive" experience but also a much higher bandwidth challenge.

Nice plug for Anybots too, the featured robot of the piece.

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magikbum
Double Robotics seems to steal the show at the end though.

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Groxx
For additional context for people not watching the video / clicking through:
this is a kid who had a bone marrow transplant and was in isolation for two
months, and was temporarily donated a telepresence robot.

Seems like a great idea for such enforced-isolation cases. You aren't reliant
on other people coming to _you_ to interact (though yeah, someone has to cart
the thing around), so you spend a lot more time around (a much larger number
of) people.

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nodata
Auto play == not good.

Also, the sarcastic voice over sounds more Channel 4 than BBC.

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a3_nm
> Auto play == not good.

Flashblock ?

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niggler
Saw the title and immediately thought of
[http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-
episodes/s08e02-awesom-...](http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-
episodes/s08e02-awesom-o)

Turns out it was a different form of "living as a robot"

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mwcampbell
This reminded me of the Big Bang Theory episode "The Cruciferous Vegetable
Amplification". Except in that episode, Sheldon was only using a telepresence
robot because he was afraid that some mishap would kill him before the
singularity.

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mappum
And now that kid will grow up to join Daft Punk.

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leethax0r
This is only a couple paragraphs, and the site is full of ads and garbage.

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ColinWright
Are you sure? It's a video report, it's the BBC, there are _no_ ads, and the
other links are to other news on the site.

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sudont
That's because you're inside of the UK, where the BBC is funded by the
government. Non-UK viewers are served ads.

<http://i.imgur.com/KHV6Mvf.png>

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maaaats
I'm outside UK and saw the video.

