You can't say that this "wouldn't have been possible without the iPad", but you CAN say that no one even dared to consider it before the iPad existed. I hope to see these in many more places.
Of course, telepresence robots in general have been talked about since at least the early 1980s by NASA for space repairs, and built since at least the early 1990s.
One of the earliest ideas for them was for virtual tourism. For example, someone in Kansas could rent one in Rome and use it to "walk around".
There were even plans at one time to land rovers on the moon, and let people rent those (shades of Wolowitz and the Mars rover in TBBT!).
One of my favorite telepresence tourism ideas was one that our future planning group came up with around 1995... winged robots so ordinary people far away could "fly" over the Alps or the Amazon or other scenery. Of course, that's now pretty much what the remote Predator drone pilots do! And I doubt we were even the first to think of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Junkyard Dawg
Personal "robots" will catch on when and only when they can either perform sexual acts. Until then they are a curiosity.
Yep, sex does help drive the price of new technology down.
One of the other forecasts we made in our R&D group in the 1990s was that of virtual sex suits.
I remember when we had to present our ideas to our new director, who was a woman. I got to the part where we predicted the rise of teledildonics (which is the actual term for this), and she stopped me to explain the term. It was interesting, to say the least. She said she thought it sounded great, but quickly moved the conversation elsewhere.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
You can't say that this "wouldn't have been possible without the iPad", but you CAN say that no one even dared to consider it before the iPad existed. I hope to see these in many more places.
Of course, telepresence robots in general have been talked about since at least the early 1980s by NASA for space repairs, and built since at least the early 1990s.
One of the earliest ideas for them was for virtual tourism. For example, someone in Kansas could rent one in Rome and use it to "walk around".
There were even plans at one time to land rovers on the moon, and let people rent those (shades of Wolowitz and the Mars rover in TBBT!).
One of my favorite telepresence tourism ideas was one that our future planning group came up with around 1995... winged robots so ordinary people far away could "fly" over the Alps or the Amazon or other scenery. Of course, that's now pretty much what the remote Predator drone pilots do! And I doubt we were even the first to think of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Junkyard Dawg
Personal "robots" will catch on when and only when they can either perform sexual acts. Until then they are a curiosity.
Yep, sex does help drive the price of new technology down.
One of the other forecasts we made in our R&D group in the 1990s was that of virtual sex suits.
I remember when we had to present our ideas to our new director, who was a woman. I got to the part where we predicted the rise of teledildonics (which is the actual term for this), and she stopped me to explain the term. It was interesting, to say the least. She said she thought it sounded great, but quickly moved the conversation elsewhere.