Another Step Toward Telepresence
by
Randy Mears
Telepresence systems are what will ultimately allow us to almost be in two places at once. The extremes of telepresence will even give us the ability to manipulate physical reality at a distance. True, we already have some capabilities, but current limitations are still significant. Telepresence for realistic face-to-face communications my, however, be closer than we think.
Several years ago, the EDS Fellows spent considerable time talking about and using something called Teleportec. It was a personal telepresence tool that did a good job of bringing distant parties together in a face-to-face virtualization. EDS even used Teleportec to put Arthur C. Clarke, while in Sri Lanka, on a Comdex keynote speaker’s stage in Las Vegas.
Teleportec used an expensive and complicated transparent projection system to achieve what was a strikingly realistic experience; but I don’t think it was that transparent projection system that made it feel so convincing. I remember thinking that there were three things that worked in concert to deliver such an effective experience:
- Camera placement at eye level, directly behind the image
- Image was life-size and video was smooth at about 20 frames per second
- Sound was high fidelity and with perfect lip synchronization
The key to achieving these three things isn’t a high tech transparent display system; it is instead the proper placement of the camera (a little tricky) and abundant bandwidth.
Now Cisco has launched their lifelike videoconferencing system. I have no doubt that they will do what needs to be done in order to succeed with this endeavor. At $80,000 for the workgroup model and Cisco behind it, this solution could signal a transition to the next step in remote collaboration.
