Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Porta-Person Remote Conferencing Stand-In
The porta-person may be part of the answer for people who spend a lot of time working remotely. The porta-person is Sun Microsystem's response to the problem of helping people who telecommute or who must attend meetings from a different location.
(Porta-Person teleconferencing technology)
The porta-person prototype is essentially a box that can "sit" at your place at a conference table. If you have a video link, your picture can appear on its screen. If you don't have enough bandwidth to present your own face, the porta-person can show a cartoon face. As you speak, the lips of the cartoon character synch with your own.
Microphones and state-of-the-art audio systems let the remote participant hear the general direction from which sounds come. The porta-person can also be swiveled to face a particular person, or part of the room. The remote participant can view a selection of images showing conference attendees as well as presentations.
"We are trying to give those remote people a real tangible presence in the meeting room," says Nicole Yankelovich, a principal investigator at Sun who led development of the porta-person as an as-yet-unpublished outgrowth of the company's collaborative-environments research. Otherwise, "people are second-class citizens; they get forgotten about."
Sun is, of course, not alone in developing options for the remote teleconferecer. The award-winning Pebbles teleconferencing robot allows sick children to not only attend classes, but actually move through the halls, piloting the Pebbles robot remotely.
These devices remind me of an early science-fictional precursor - the "Arr-two" remote-control robots used in the 1981 novel Oath of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. In the novel, Chief Engineer Tony Rand needed to be several places at once in an enormous construction site:
He had to follow the minutiae, because he didn't know what would turn out to be vital.That led to his development of robot probes; small devices with cameras and sound equipment which could move freely through Todos Santos under Rand's direct control.
(Read more about Niven and Pournelle's Arr-two robot probes)
Update 11-Jan-2024: See the entry for the proxy robot from Hotel Cosmos (1938) by Raymond Z. Gallun. End update.
Story via MIT Technology Review; read more about the Pebbles robot.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/15/2006)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 1 )
Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...' - Philip K. Dick, 1955.
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'
Humanoid Robots Spotted In Homes Performing Household Chores
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.' Arthur Bird, 1899.
Bambot Open Source Cheap Delivery Robot
'Not since the time he rewired the delivery robot...'
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'
Have AI Researchers Given Up On 'Bio-Babies'?
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
Bunker Busters and Bore-Pellets
'The first revelation of the new Soviet bore-pellets.'
'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
Heart Patches Grown In The Lab Repair Hearts
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
Humanoid Robots Spotted In Homes Performing Household Chores
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
Musk Proposes Sites For Martian Cities
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
Bambot Open Source Cheap Delivery Robot
'Not since the time he rewired the delivery robot...'
Robot Collective Acts Like A Smart Material
'...it was all composed of tiny, identical cubes, carefully laid to form a tilelike surface.'
Vipera Electric Skis From Frigid Dynamics
'JOAN strapped on her power-skis...'
Pixel Watch 'Loss of Pulse Detection' And Philip K. Dick
'He carried on his person a triggering mechanism sensitive to his heartbeat.'
Nuclear Plant Restarted To Power AI To Feed Us Dreams
'...Anything was possible in my imaginary environment.'
SpaceX's Starman Tesla Roadster In Space
'Somewhere in space, a chrome and blue automobile raced the green light of Earth.'
Pivotal Blackfly Electric Aircraft Lifts And Hovers
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...'
