If you work in any sort of business/office environment you'll be aware of the need for video communications and conferencing. We're in the age of globalisation now and sometimes it's just impossible to physically get everybody you need into a meeting. Say an English company needs to chat to an American company, about a partnership for example maybe when it comes to signing on the dotted line they'll be a meeting in some Hotel halfway between the two, but a business isn't going to fork out thousands of pounds on flights for every meeting/chat.
My point is that when emails, phone calls, instant messaging etc just aren't adequate, it's video conferencing that saves the day. It's nothing new though, the technology has been around since the eighties but it's coming back in a big way and now it's known as 'tele-presence', apparently.
But what do you do if tele-presence doesn't cut the mustard. What if it's too expensive for instance?
Well, Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University thinks that Avatars are soon to be the backbone of business communication. His robot known as the Telenoid R1 allows users to actually "feel the presence of another person" says the man himself.
Ishiguro’s system uses a motion-tracking webcam to transmit your voice, facial expressions and head movements to the Telenoid, via a high-bandwidth web connection. The avatar produces a rough approximation of real body language and according to the professor, "it is surprisingly easy to dupe oneself into regarding it as human."
“Eye contact and head movements are important for everybody. But we also gave the robot a minimal design, so that people can use their imagination to make it more personal.”
Well, watch the video below and see what you think.
Source: BBC NEWS