Telepresence Via Matter Imaging

Qa32 writes "Computer scientists in the U.S. are developing a system which would allow people to convey a solid 3D recreation of themselves over the Internet. From the article: 'When you watch something created by claymation, it is a real object and it looks like it's moving itself. That's something like the idea we're doing... in our case, the idea is that you have computation in the 'clay', as though the clay can move itself.'"

Comments

kind of like Star Wars

[yagu]

From the article:

And he stressed this would be useful for much more than simple video conferencing.

"It's very artificial to talk to somebody through a glass wall, which is effectively what you have when you have a screen," he added.

If someone could make this work, I could see it being a useful improvement over traditional video-conferencing technology, albeit, maybe a bit eerie and weird to get used to.

I worked for a large corporation, and they continued to pump large sizes of dollars into each successive generation of new televideo conferencing equipment to the promise of it "like being in the room with your Denver peers" (putting aside for the moment I have no peers). And, while each generation was an improvement, the experience never even approached like being in the same room for so many reasons, but like the article points points out, maybe one of the biggest reasons was the permanent glass barrier.

I found no matter how "good" the quality got, it was always an annoying way to communicate and I finally opted for any of those meetings to participate from my desk via phone, no video.

However, for those who have seen Revenge, I found the "pseudo" conferencing whereby remote participants (at this point that line becomes blurred) existed as holograms, sitting in a chair in the room with everyone else. That may be eerie, but I think the biological nature of man would quickly overcome that weirdness and it could soon seem as if the person were really there.

Or, this could just be a bunch of hoooie.

This could

[Anonymous Coward]

Really change the future of net sex!

Re:This could

[RickPartin]

Any technological improvement must first benefit porn before it can take off. It's an unspoken rule. For example every single geek wishes for a holodeck for the soul purpose of holosex.

Re:This could

[tuoppi]

Producing a warm, wet, and, I guess, more importantly, orificed interactive version seems somewhat more complex and definitely beyond the realms of this lifetime....

Actually, that's already reality. This implementation is called "woman". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman for more information.

Even if woman was implemented a long time ago (some legends mention a liberal usage of spare parts from a standard nerd), the price hasn't gone down, and this product is still very rare among nerd community.

And pr0n technology moves 1 step closer

[antifoidulus]

to being the real thing sans the nagging.

Davey and Goliath

[hedley]

Don't doooo it Daaaaveeeey!!!

H.

Re:I wonder

[Seumas]

This is computational clay. Not MAGIC clay.

Hmm...

[excelblue]

I wonder what would happen if I were to touch the replicated object and attempt to mess around with the inner parts of it.

Or what kind of disaster would I end up with if there was some serious lag in the information? How about corrupted info?

Re:Hmm...

[RickPartin]

Completely consuming and destroying your hand silly. All futuristic technology has to be able to spontaneously kill people as a rule.

Increase in crime

[Newrad]

Could this be used from crime sprees? Dress up in all black and then project yourself in a bank and steal the money. Or use your projected self and start beating people up on the streets, it's the perfect crime. If the comes up you just turn the thing back to dust.

So...

[__aaclcg7560]

Wouldn't creating a copy of another person be a form of piracy? Yet another technology that the movie/record industry will try to eliminate. After all, why should anyone be allowed to have a personal duplicate of Michael Jackson at home.

Re:So...

[myowntrueself]

"After all, why should anyone be allowed to have a personal duplicate of Michael Jackson at home."

Maybe it could be used as a form of punishment? Something like distributed penal servitude.

Shape shifting robots

[isny]

Sounds like some strange combination of the T1000 from Terminator 2 and Gumby.

Nano Dust ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Professor Goldstein has envisioned that, eventually, the objects will be built with "nano-dust" - tiny objects that can be programmed to bind to each other and move - but currently they are trying to build at a much larger scale, working with objects the size of table-tennis balls.

If he's going to try and invent "nano dust" (whatever that is) I think we're in for a long wait.

One Word: Boobies

[pipingguy]

A fellow slashdotter told me about the boob mouse a few weeks ago. Since getting two, I haven't left the house. With this new innovation, I may never move from the computer chair.

Re:Funny but Not Funny

[TheKidWho]

omg, the thoughts of demolition man style sex make me wanan find whoever is doing this research and SHOOT THEM NOW BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!!

Re:Going to take more than a printer

[dark-br]

Ok... keep Pamela Adersons "consciousness" to yourself and just give me her body ;)

Re:Funny but Not Funny

[jamesh]

I wonder what thoughts would have been conjured up in my head had I not known that 'Demolition Man' was a movie :)

Bring on the Clay Dildos and Cavulators

[eno2001]

I hope these claythings are self cleaning. There's going to be lot's of Windows (exhibitionists), BSD (necropheliacs) and Linux (afraid of girls) fans wanting to get their hands on this technology. (I'm an equal opportunity offender) ;P

Naw...not that episode

[Rhinobird]

This is more like that episode where Fry gets a robot copy of Lucy Liu. we just have to insert a blank robot in the drive and copy the information over and BAM!...a robo-mation copy of Gillian Anderson.