Tele-Immersion at UC Berkeley

Roland Piquepaille writes "Tele-immersion is a technology which allows cooperative interaction between groups of distant people working in the same virtual environment. At the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at UC Berkeley, interdisciplinary teams are deploying this technology. It involves three real-time steps: taking images of a subject with 48 cameras, transmitting the images over a network, and implanting them in a virtual world. For example, it will allow students and professors on different campuses to meet -- virtually -- and discuss -- lively -- while being in ancient sites of Greece or Italy. The technology offers more promises than academics discussions. Imagine a nurse telling a diabetic how to make an insulin injection while being far away from him. Of course, this technology is facing some hurdles, such as the cost involved to model you with so many cameras. This summary shows you some details about the image processing involved in this project."

Comments

Telepresense: together, or apart?

[QuantumFTL]

I have a general question for the /.ers out there: do you feel that this kind of technology will tend to bring people together more, or apart?

I mean, when you can be 100 cool places at the flip of a button, why settle for wherever you are right now? Same with social stuff - why "put up with" the boring people next door instead of flipping on the immersive internet and talking to others who share your interests?

This is happenning already. Most of my communication with friends is IM, email, or cell phone. The amount of face-to-face talking, in real life, is astoundingly low. Is this a good thing? I mean, I can keep tabs with people around the country - and around the world. But it's not the same.

I can see a lot of legitimate business uses for this technology, and who wouldn't want to be able to attend famous lecturer's sessions without the need to travel (or fear of being caught sleeping)? I'm just worried that it will become an even stronger isolating force in our society.

Also, will telepresense bring about more outsourcing - why pay for a secretary who's right there, when for 1/10th the price you can have one from India, by telepresence, for the 90% or whatever things that need done that don't require actual presense.

Just some questions to think about.

Cheers,
Justin Wick