Telepresence bots: making meetings interesting

I doubt there’s anyone who’ll claim that teleconferences or videoconferences are the most engaging way to communicate. Sure, you can pull faces on a teleconference or play games on your smartphone out of camera shot, but at the end of the day both methods are poor substitutes for a face-to-face meeting.

Attempting to bridge that gap are companies like Anybots, who are creating telepresence robots that allow a videoconference participant to have a little more control and interaction with a remote team. Check it out:

I’m not convinced on this being adopted widely – I think some other telepresence options and virtual world options offer something even more engaging. That said, the bot is cute and mobile, so it’s definitely an improvement on the status quo.
[via Big Think]

Daden’s Bot

New World Notes’ Wagner James Au was checking out the new Daden in-world web browser when he had a couple of interesting interactions with a ‘robotar’ although his pick-up lines left a little to be desired.

I spent some time with ‘Abi’ myself and agree that for a bot she’s relatively engaging if you’re happy to talk about Daden products. There are other impressive bots out there but as you’ll see from the snippet below, Abi is single, something the above correspondent wasn’t able to determine 😉

You: chatbot?
abi: It is feasible to run an avatar chatbot over a GPRS or dial-up GSM link, but not advisable. For this reason we suggest making a textbot available for mobile users. Avatars should run OK over 3G networks.

abi: Talk to me!

You: why?

abi: Sorry, I didn’t understand. I can tell you about Daden and our products and services, virtual worlds and chatbots.

You: are you married?

abi: Not the last time I looked.

I’d love to hear what your most amusing bot experiences are, whether they be in Second Life, World of Warcraft or elsewhere…

Previous Posts