

Can Someone Turn Me On? - changdizzle
http://www.tokbox.com/blog/can-some-one-turn-me-on/

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famousactress
I've been keeping an eye on Double and would really love to try this out. I
wonder if could help solve an interesting problem... remote employees in
companies that are otherwise not really remote.

I'm the only employee at my company not in SF (I'm in San Diego). We've got a
fairly remote/asynchronous culture though.. there's one other engineer who
works full time from his home even though he lives in SF.. but the culture is
slowly shifting as we grow, especially now that we've got a real office :)

I'd be curious to see some case-studies like this one from teams that don't
have skin in the game.

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rcoder
This is exactly the model that my team uses. We have ~40 folks on-site in SF,
and about a half-dozen who work remotely. We got a Double a few weeks back,
and after a slow start it's now in use most of the time.

The OP is not wrong about the qualitative difference between a 'bot and a
normal video-conference setup. Things like this may seem minor (or even
silly), but they go a long way to make it feel like our remote colleagues are
actually present and part of the team:

<https://twitter.com/thedeepg/status/337352680840257536>
<https://twitter.com/rcoder/status/336584756147916800>

~~~
famousactress
That's rad to hear! I can definitely see value in that. It probably only seems
minor or silly if you're not the one who's remote. I had to fly back down to
San Diego because of an emergency this winter and ended up attending the
company holiday get-together via iPad. They propped me up in a chair and
hooked a speaker up to me so that my voice had about the same volume as
everyone else's. I couldn't believe how well it worked out. Just the short
distinction of being at eye-level and not angled up 45 degrees from someone's
laptop screen made the experience so much more immersive. The ability to turn
my 'head' would be even better :)

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anandkulkarni
I can't say enough good things about Double. At one point we at MobileWorks
were the world's heaviest users of Doubles – not sure if that's still the case
or if someone's caught up.

Right now one of our partners operates full-time on the robot, and
MobileWorkers come by to visit the office more regularly. Soon, we'll send our
MobileWorkers to visit the customers they're working with as in-office remote
staffers.

It's like having them in the office here with us.

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hawkharris
It's exciting to think that people with physical disabilities might be able to
use this technology to explore places and communicate.

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pessimism
Exactly. It’s why I hope people will see this not so much as a new frontier of
telecommunication nor telecommuting, but _“telepresence”_.

It’s not a medium; it’s a physical proxy.

I hope people will see it as more than a convenience for working remotely.

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JshWright
I'd have some concerns about device that's designed to park in a rooms where
private meetings are taking place and transmit audio and video to the
internet...

~~~
Cyranix
So... you're worried about laptops?

The Double seems to be roughly a meter tall with a conspicuous screen and
wheel, making it a poor fit for malicious surveillance. Show a little common
sense.

~~~
JshWright
Yes... I am... aren't you? Most companies I know exercise at least basic
precautions against malware on their laptops, in large part to avoid exposing
confidential information.

In this case, I'm not worried about someone hacking the Double and somehow
sneaking it into a meeting. I'm worried about someone compromising Double's
servers and listening in on the conversation. Is the AV feed secured end-to-
end?

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diminoten
No, I'm not _more_ worried about a Double than I am about a laptop, which is
the reason the laptop was brought up in the first place.

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StavrosK
To be fair, you're the one who brought up the laptop. JshWright's point was
that he's concerned about the safety of an application whose sole purpose
appears to be transmitting the contents of private meetings over the internet.

It sounds like a very easy target for getting access to the private details of
many companies.

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xauronx
Just wanted to throw a comment in here that I've been using tokbox for a while
and love it. Anyone who needs video chat in their app should check it out.
{Not affiliated in any way}

~~~
janineyoong
Aw! Tokbox is only as good as the applications people build with it. Thanks
for using us.

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semanticist
Thin, pale-grey font on a white background, so even though this looks like an
interesting story it's going to be a strain for me to read it.

Guys, fire your designers when they tell you this is okay. Fire them out of a
cannon into the SUN. Your content is why people are following links to your
site, and if you make it hard to read your content, why bother having the
site?

At least have DARK grey text on the white background, but better is black,
with solid fonts for the main body.

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skorgu
Are these actually shipping yet? I know a few places that would be interested
in trying them out but the "shipping soon we promise!" is a hard sell.

~~~
danielweber
There is at least one similar company that is already shipping.

[http://news.yahoo.com/telepresence-robots-let-employees-
beam...](http://news.yahoo.com/telepresence-robots-let-employees-
beam-143529632--finance.html)

NB: I have may have a bias here.

~~~
skorgu
$16k is also a harder sell than $2k, especially for a pilot that may not end
up being useful.

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gz5
Like Tokbox and am intrigued by Double. Would Google Glass be a similar
paradigm change if applied in this manner?

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songzme
if its cheaper, there could potentially be a service where you can hire
someone to take your place remotely and everything that person sees will be
live streamed via google glass to you.

~~~
randall
<http://arresteddevelopment.wikia.com/wiki/Larry_Middleman>

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mistercheese
I'm curious if the ability to pilot the device is that useful - it can't
navigate crowds or do stairs anyway. So for the price, an iPad on a stick that
has any always on VC would seem to be much cheaper and just as effective. Easy
to move around if you need, and cheap enough to put in every room.

