Monthly Archives: January 2011

Why does BusinessWeek make dire warnings for the future?

Into my inbox came my google Alert about another intriguing article about robots in the office. BusinessWeek, source of the CEOs Guide to Robots in the Workplace, has come up with another article on The Robot in the Next Cubicle. Sadly, the article seems to put robots out of reach of the office market, discussing very expensive systems and giving a scary warning that over half of all jobs could be handled by robots by 2030. Continue reading

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Remote Presence links for January 13, 2011

Even thought I would love to have news every day for readers of Pilot Presence, I will sometimes bring up some posts/comments I see on other sites for further discussion. Continue reading

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Why the iRobot AVA is a “concept”, not a product…YET.

In the days after Colin introduced the AVA “concept robot” (as defined by Gerry Caron, director of product management for iRobot), the buzz on the AVA has been superb. Since announcement, the traffic on iRobot and the iRobot AVA has been phenomenal. And, while the features discussed are quite impressive (as I mention in this post on the AVA), I see some serious design concerns on the device as an effective “presence system”. Continue reading

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Enjoyable holiday dinner via telepresence robots

While I normally do not think having the telepresence robots dressed up as mannequins is a good idea, the people at Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam ad agency created a set of these RPSes and allowed people to come together and try it out. Continue reading

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Remote Presence links for January 10, 2011

Remote Presence Links discussing telepresence robotics and other opinions Continue reading

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vGo demos at CES 2011 – and names names

Tracking my news feed and I see The Guardian in England got some great content from Brad Kayton (founder and inventor) at vGo. Continue reading

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iRobot throws their AVA into remote presence ring

As announced yesterday, iRobot has jumped into the telepresence robot scene with their AVA offering. As reported in PCMag, CNET, Engadget, Hihook and many other sources, the 40 lb iRobot AVA offers Continue reading

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Remote Presence Links for January 6, 2011

One of my favorite things I love comes straight out of some of my must-read sites like O’Reilly’s Radar and Colin’s ePolitics where they do a summary of interesting links/posts on remote presence / telepresence robots. I will endeavour to do this every week – and maybe twice a week. Continue reading

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Christmas Party at the Tech Review and other remote presence thoughts

As I discovered the first article, I forgot the original article from Tom Simonite which is more publicly available. Again, some interesting thoughts bubble out of this article, which I can agree with his findings – especially when being the pilot of the robotic telepresence. Continue reading

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The coming challenge of remote presence social norms as per MIT Tech Review

If these robots are to introduce an era of effortless interaction with machines, the changes may have to come from us, not them. “As these machines appear in the workplace, we will see completely new social norms forming around them,” says Takayama. We humans may have to learn to judge people represented by electronic bodies differently from those we can see in the flesh. Continue reading

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