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

This reminds of that board meeting scene in Demolition Man with all the monoliths with screens each projecting a participant's face on them.<p>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.

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?<p>The timezones work out great for people in the US, and the museums have nothing to lose since it's all incremental revenue.

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.

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.

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.

I found the title misleading; I was expecting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledildonics" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledildonics</a>

I've seen this before... Here it is: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IvanAnywhere" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IvanAnywhere</a>

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

Makes me think of this "Surrogates". NOT sexy. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/" rel="nofollow">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/</a>

How do they cope with stairs? I am imagining something like this:<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAPwh0SMzIo" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAPwh0SMzIo</a>

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.<p>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.

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

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

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.

The only problem - punching in the face :)

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

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

would be better if it's controlled by google glasses

Very cool.<p>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.<p>Interesting none-the-less though.

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.

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.