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Conference Robot Connects Offices in Different Countries

Posted by timothy on from the bridging-gaps dept.

An anonymous reader writes "With travel getting so expensive this sure would be a neat way to connect people in separate offices and not just when they are overseas: 'Minneapolis-based PowerObjects Inc. has created an innovative tool to communicate with its development team in Islamabad, Pakistan. It's a 5-foot-3-inch, 215-pound robot called POGO — a sort of rolling, computer-screen on wheels mounted with a webcam that bears a slight resemblance to the R2D2 of "Star Wars" fame.'"

7 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Similar to R2D2? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Other than rolling around, how does this compare at all to R2D2?

  2. Re:Am I missing something? by planckscale · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The person offshore is able to remotely control the robot and "walk around" the other office, teleconferencing, joining discussions, hang out by the water cooler etc. I think it's a pretty cool idea. Watch the video.

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  3. Uh, yeah... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Conferences happen in conference rooms, and conference rooms don't need to move. You put an LCD and a camera on the wall of the conference room, get better bandwidth and a better picture, waste less space in the cramped conference room despite having a larger screen, don't have to worry about whether the robot is in the room or needs to be moved, and most of all it's cheaper.

    I mean they say they discarded video conferencing as too expensive... So how is this cheaper? Because it's just a web cam and not some custom video conferencing setup from a vendor with super high markup? Okay... Well why not ditch the unnecessary robot, and just get a nice screen and a web cam? Seems like you could get that $8k cost down quite a bit and still end up with better looking video conferences.

    Oh, right, because robots are cool. Well as long as I still get my bonus then I'm not going to complain if my boss wants to buy one...

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    1. Re:Uh, yeah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Conferences happen in conference rooms, and conference rooms don't need to move. [...] Well why not ditch the unnecessary robot, and just get a nice screen and a web cam? [...] Oh, right, because robots are cool. Well, maybe you've got these employees, and you want to manage them. You could attempt to perform 100% of this management in the form of getting people into a conference room. And you might find that wasn't very effective - the worker/manager meetings might end up more like supplier/customer meetings. I can see why a manager might want more tools than 'meeting in conference room' in their toolbox.

      Also, having a videoconferencing system in your boardroom isn't going to get any trade magazine articles written about you.
  4. Re:This thing resembles R2D2... by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes, note to "anonymous reader": when astroturfing your products, it's probably best not to make comparisons that will result in mockage. Although if that was actually your goal, then MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

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  5. so, lemme get this straight... by gadabyte · · Score: 3, Insightful

    instead of buying everyone a $30 pocket-sized webcam, they bought an $8,000 webcam that needs wheels and a propulsion system because it weighs 215 friggin pounds. then, perhaps realizing how stupid they had been, they decided to slap some blue paint on it and claim a (non-existent) resemblance to r2d2.

    huzzah?

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  6. Call me a skeptic by ihatethetv · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...but unless robotics have really improved recently, I doubt this robot will have enough power to give the user a satisfying strangling grip and slapping power. The haptics problem here is not trivial and needs much more funding and maybe an xprize/GNC type competition. -G