My recollections of the Technology Review holiday party, which took place yesterday, are a whirl of awkward shouted conversations, blurred vision and an embarrassing incident where I ran into a wall. Fortunately that’s only because I was attending as a robot rather than in person. The party took place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while I was sat safely in my office in San Francisco, California.
My electronic avatar was made by VGo Communications, one of a handful of telepresence robots aimed at businesses as an alternative to travel. During my short time trying out the robot I’ve found it has helped me feel more connected to my colleagues thousands of miles away. Using it to attend a party, though, highlighted some of the social challenges that telepresence robots face in any situation (read my longer piece in our latest issue for more on this).
Our elastic sense of personal space posed one of the biggest problems. At a crowded party people get more cosy, and that seems to apply to robots too. Unfortunately the robot is only around four feet tall, and has a camera with a relatively narrow field of view. Even though I could tell that I was in a group conversation, I could only see one person at a time, from the viewpoint of a child, a strange experience for someone who stands 6 feet tall. Threading my way around the crowed party without bumping into things was a challenge I didn’t master.
Don’t settle for half the story.
Get paywall-free access to technology news for the here and now.