

DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA) - Undertow10
http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/13/doublerobotics-telepresence-gets-sexy-and-made-in-the-usa/

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jayfuerstenberg
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.

~~~
nivla
Actually this reminded me of that episode of Big Bang Theory where Sheldon
gets paranoid about germs or something and builds a similar device to interact
with others. It was also the episode where they bring in Steve Wozniak.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K1uj9VmCzo>

~~~
tobias3
They used this one: <http://www.willowgarage.com/pages/texai/overview>

(Competition coming soon <https://www.suitabletech.com/> )

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cmansley
You mean spin-off company? Suitable is developing the Texai robot into a
product.

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willowgarage
This is all correct. Suitable is a spin-off from Willow Garage, with many of
the same people involved. Suitable's first product is based off the Texai
project from Willow. The Texai was featured on the Big Bang Theory in one
episode.

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tdubhro1
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.

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adrianhon
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.

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tomflack
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.

~~~
regularfry
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.

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fsiefken
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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tobobo
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.

~~~
Devilboy
The car sounds from The Jetsons

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

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stinos
am I the only one finding this anything but sexy? My girl is sexy. This is a
device that looks like a broom with a flatscreen mounted on top.

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macleodan
I found the title misleading; I was expecting
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledildonics>

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mbq
I've seen this before... Here it is:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IvanAnywhere>

~~~
GFischer
The main difference from older products is price (and probably availability
too). At a price of a plane ticket, it becomes more attractive - if it can
reasonably simulate an in-person meeting, which is yet to be determined.

I don't think it will replace sales calls just yet, but it's a step forward.

Edit: AnyBots is U$ 15.000, so this is an order of magnitude cheaper.

And I found on Google TILR at U$ 10.000 <http://robodynamics.com/products/>

Plus, I found a hack of an iRobot that claims to give you a similar device for
U$ 500 :)

[http://www.fastcompany.com/1726174/500-irobot-hack-lets-
you-...](http://www.fastcompany.com/1726174/500-irobot-hack-lets-you-be-two-
places-once)

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blablabla123
It's not sexy, it's f'd up when someone annoys you with a Skype-Segway.

~~~
chii
you can just dangle the robot up a wall, and they can't follow you. Can't do
that with a human...

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gmaslov
Well you _can_ , but it's not very polite.

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Nux
Makes me think of this "Surrogates". NOT sexy.
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/>

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coob
How do they cope with stairs? I am imagining something like this:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAPwh0SMzIo>

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DanielBMarkham
Something about this feels really weird to me, like something out of a Woody
Allen movie. Can you picture a company full of these guys? A restaurant with
half the tables having robots sitting at them? A sporting even where little
iPads sit in seats watching the action? Just feels --- odd.

Usually when I feel this way it's a great idea, because I have terrible
instincts, so keep up the good work, guys! I'd love to try this out with
various technology teams I help that do distributed work.

~~~
wmblaettler
It's does seem rather sci-fi to send a robot in your place or to embody a
robot that is at a location where regular people are also located. I can more
easily accept the idea of a telepresence robot in an office, but even that is
rather uncanny.

It will be interesting to see if this tech really goes mainstream over the
coming decades -- I predict it will.

Just an observation: a telepresence robot at a restaurant would not do much
good in that the it cannot eat for you. But robotic servers -- that's entirely
feasible.

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TallGuyShort
Can you imagine the youthful hijinks if anybody ever tried walking one of
these down a populated public street?

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melloclello
Does this not buzz anybody else out? Getting a wee bit future nauseous over
here

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laverick
Wonder how stable the gyro is. I can just see someone walking around the
corner, bumping into this thing and crashing your telepresence to the floor.

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ricardobeat
A gyro-stabilized thing like this is usually more stable than a three our
four-wheeled one, which can't fight back it's own weight.

~~~
michaelt
Products like the Headthere Giraffe have a heavy-ass base full of batteries so
the centre of gravity is lower than an office swivel chair. Which of course
keeps it stable even if the battery runs down or the software crashes.

It's not a very elegant design, though, and it makes carrying the thing a
hassle.

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stefek99
The only problem - punching in the face :)

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Jarihd
OT: Can somebody tell whats the music track in the video ??? awesome track,
made me feel happy :-)

~~~
grabeh
I think it may be a slight remix of 'Paradise' by Coldplay.

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jermaink
Even if I would never like to visit a museum via iPad screen, the concept
looks really great!

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ricksta
would be better if it's controlled by google glasses

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aklofas
Very cool.

There is a sense of irony in that Trevor Blackwell along with the other YC
partners are backing a company that essentially wants to put AnyBots out of
business.

Interesting none-the-less though.

~~~
nandemo
FWIW, Trevor (tlb) made a comment in a previous DoubleRobotics thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4376471>

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alpine
Can it run iPad apps at the same time as being in telepresence mode? Imagine
two of these meeting and exchanging photos or agreeing to a game of chess
autonomously.

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goggles99
Cool but impractical. Not gonna make it big. It would take some of those
Google glasses controlling it (and at real time turning speed) to even
approach practicality.

