There is more evidence that the future Entertainment and Communication will involve some type of mobile telepresence.
Currently we use telepresence as a communications tool to conference with people across the world. New innovations communication are taking telepresence to the next level and giving users the ability of movement across space. The current technology being manufacture today is mostly one way where the sensors are mounted on a mobile unit and railed back to the controllers screen. Newer technology involves two way communication devices mounted on robotic units. This allows for interaction between the user controlling the device and people near the robot. Soon we will have bots controlled by cell phones with two way AV communication capabilities.
In 2008 WowWee Group Limited unveiled their latest toy, the Rovio. The Rovio allows a user to control a car-like robot that has a webcam feeding images back to the computer control system. This telepresence device allows the user to explore a place with out physically being there.
There are many toys on the market that work like the Rovio including the Erector Spykee which carries a web cam.
The most interesting part of the desire of telepresence is that people are beginning to build their own devices to be able to explore the world. This Father-Son team built a balloon system to explore outer-space:
This is a remote controlled robot called “CoolerBot” that takes pictures of the wilderness:
And this is a group of guys, Team Black Sheep, that rigged a camera to a toy airplane to get a birds eye perspective of New York City.
The best part about Open Source experiments like the one above is that you can copy the instructions, the code, the hardware and software and then build upon the idea and share your version of the product for other to build or improve upon. At this rate we will have amazing open source projects all over in a small but growing DIY market.
A flying bot that became popular due to it hover capabilities is a drone powered by four propellers. And now this Drone can be controlled by an iPhone’s accelerometer which is a pretty interesting control system. The only this Drone needs is a small screen and speakers to allow for two way audio-video communication and this toy will revolutionize telepresence.
I saw a presentation at an Ignite event a few months ago about how Willow Garage created an open source telepresence robot which it manufactured in order to have the ability to interact with people miles away with out the need to travel to the actual location. The robots have the ability to move around and display a live feed from the person controlling it. The robot also sends a video feed back to the user which makes the device a perfect two way communication and exploration tool.
We can expect to see more of these devices in the near future and eventually they will become part of our every day life. Specially when Advertising has begun to adopt the idea. Here is a nice project by Mitsubishi Outlander illustrating this point. A car controlled by users from an interface online!
This is what users experience: