Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
From the article:
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.
to being the real thing sans the nagging.
Monstar L
This is computational clay. Not MAGIC clay.
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?
"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.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Sounds like some strange combination of the T1000 from Terminator 2 and Gumby.
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.
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.
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!!
I wonder what thoughts would have been conjured up in my head had I not known that 'Demolition Man' was a movie :)
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.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
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.