Te ch H ubTTTTeecchhh HHub
ULTIMATE TEST
Could telepresence devices
help us work anywhere?
Daniel Bennett spends a
week at home, to find out if
he’ll ever need to leave the
house again...
ight now, as I write this, I’m at the
office in the Batman pyjamas I got for
Christmas. Don’t worry I haven’t lost
my mind (at least I don’t think so). My presence is
actually being virtually beamed to Focus HQ from
my webcam to one of the machines pictured here.
Since my camera can only see me from the waist
up, I’ve decided to keep things casual. Besides, it
hardly seems worth getting changed just to make
the commute from bedroom to computer.
You might detect a note of smugness in those
words, and you’d be right. Dodging the daily
commute is something that most office workers
dream of. Indeed, according to the Office of
National Statistics, one in eight of us opt to work
from home. But sending your presence remotely
via a robot isn’t just useful for dodging the rat race.
Globalisation has meant that companies often
keep a base of operations in each capital city and
telepresence is therefore a real alternative to the
ever-growing cost of travel.
But back to me and my pyjamas. Over the
winter, during a waterlogged walk to work, I
wondered whether I could do my job entirely
from home. After all, there’s very little I can’t
do with a computer in front of me. But could
technology help me do it without losing any of the
benefits of working as a team? I wanted to share
ideas with colleagues, get involved in meetings
and, most importantly, find out what everyone
thought of last night’s TV. So I’ve rolled in four
Remote Presence Devices (RPDs) to find out
if I really can have it all.
BEAM
ME IN,
SCOTTY
R