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. If you have any suggestions for links, feel free to connect on the comments.
- CES: Facevision releases budget Skype-certified HD Webcam – the TouchCam V1 720p HD VideoCam is another 720p HD entry in the market to compete with Logitech’s C910 offering but at a lower price-point (around $70). I assume the product is good for the talking head scenario (sitting in front of the cam), but motion and low-light may still be an issue.
- Sphereo – while not specifically a presence system, the Sphereo is offering Bluetooth control of the little robot ball as it travels the room – under the pilot control from a smartphone. At one point, I saw a similar concept using an iPhone for another robotic system, which is an novel way of controlling direction of a system.
And it seems that the concept of remote presence is becoming a ever growing meme, as seen by these articles:
- 2011: Year of the Robot Self from New Scientist
- Kinect Hacked to Control Humanoid Robot: First Steps to Avatar at Fast Company – using the Microsoft Kinect and a low-cost robot, an enthusiast created a master-slave system.
- And my favorite: Forget Telecommuting, Telepresence is the New Office Reality from ExtremeTech – yes, that is Josh and the Texai in the photo.