indi.ca

I always thought this’d be cool, it’s a robot that lets you work a room via an iPad on wheels. So you can video-conference in and still move around. At Social Media Day this year they had a Google Hangout with Jehan R, but it was mega awkward. There are few things worse than a 1-500 video call. This Double Robot, however, is much more cool. Using a system like this, Jehan could actually wheel around the room.

Sometimes you do just have to be there. But when you are there, you wonder how pointless it kinda is. I mean, you sit all the way in traffic just to talk to someone because a system isn’t online. Think of how difficult it would be to get, say, every item in a particular Arpico online. What if, instead, you had robots that you could control from home and order stuff sorta the same way that humans do. That’s actually kinda inefficient, but it’s something I’ve often thought about. That is, instead of taking stores online, just stick robots in the stores.

Other examples are, say, doing a tour of a factory floor, or checking out a printing facility. Numerous times I have driven way out to the boonies to just sign off on print jobs. I understand for that you need to touch and feel, except you really don’t need to touch and feel, not always. If I could dial in and keep an eye on a print run that’d do 50% of the time. This thing does cost like $2,000 though. Plus two iPads.

Another idea I had was something beyond this iPad on a stick, an actual teddy bear that, say, a travelling parent could control from abroad, via XBox motion control or something. So a young child could lay with their parent via an animated toy when they’re out of town. That’d be cool. Maybe a bit creepy, but I think mostly cool. And I haven’t even got started on teledildonics.