Telepresence

Humans are very fascinated by the fact that they can talk to each other or can see each other or feel like they are at the same place even though they are not in the same place. My family once tried to talk and look at each other at the same time by using skype. Somehow it wasn’t working well. We almost gave up but my father (in Seoul) called to my sister and my niece (in NJ) by using MSN and my sister called me(NY) by using skype. I could hear everything my father saying through my sister’s mic. It was fun but I was thinking if it’s really that much worth for people who are in different places to talk to each other.

For me, broadcasting is more one-way of expressing. You are not really moving and the person that is seeing you is not really moving either. Even though you are moving it doesn’t mean people who are watching it need to show their reaction. One-to-One is two people meeting at some point and it’s pretty close to the physical conversation comparing to broadcasting. Can the communication happening in the space caused by One-to-One streaming be more effective than physical communication? If that’s not, then can it be at least very close to the real one? From the experience in HP HALO center, besides the whole ‘trust’ thing, I was more curious about the efficiency of the communication in that TelePlace. Even in real life, people need to know better than to trust someone. The very specific way of giving your opinion to the other can be really important. But in the teleplace, you won’t be able to see the other person is really looking at you and listening to you. So, I was thinking maybe it would be fun that you can check if they are really looking at you or not. For example, randomly you can give the other quick question which needs yes/no answer into the one’s window. So people can’t fake where they are looking at by hiding the chatting window behind other windows. Just..thinking.

Jain