Sony’s new Telepresence Floating Head Robot

Robotic devices have been used on factory production lines, space and other forms of work, but how about the office? And what about telepresence?

The Anybots QB robot, designed by Anybots Inc, is set to revolutionise office space as we know it today - it is a videoconferencing system on wheels, similar in style to Pixar’s Wall E, Eva robot. Anybots Inc create robots that are essentially an extension of us. They move around on wheels and have cameras for faces, of which a person’s face can be featured live. Video footage can then be transmitted back to its owner/master at any given time - ideal for work meetings!

Although the QB robot is used in Silicon Valley to provide additional help in office spaces, they have not been designed to climb stairs particularly well and to keep costs low, their screens are quite small, which is where Sony’s new floating bubble robot comes in.

Imagine sitting in your office space, surrounded by floating balloon shaped robots of your friends and colleagues and being able to communicate live with these strange futuristic forms, either as a bubble or person. Sony’s bubble robot, designed by Tobita Hiroaki can float effortlessly up stairs, examine stock levels and move about freely in crowded spaces.

The aim is to make telepresence possible through robotic devices. In other words they want to create technologies (telerobotics) which make people feel like they are present in more than one location. If we can be in two places at once, perhaps we will have less of a need to travel thus cutting carbon emissions. Could this be the closest thing to experiencing teleporting?

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