Smart Accessibility perfectly illustrated in this fantastic little video, showcasing smartphone apps improving the lives of the elderly and of people with disabilities.
Office Robots
March 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment
We’re not completely sure about this but have to admit that the concept and application of technology is quite interesting.
Meet the Anybots QB, a telepresence robot that can represent you in the office by sitting in conference rooms, going to meetings and rolling about on the office floorplate. The whole time it does so, it displays a live webcam video of your face, while transmitting to you a live video and audio stream of whatever it’s looking at.
“The QB is an extension of you,” says Bob Christopher, chief operating officer of Anybots. “It removes the barriers between people and work so people can teleport themselves to the office space.”
QB won’t replace video conferencing, says Christopher, but it’s a way to look over the shoulder of your colleagues and employees without actually getting into the office. The robot can be manipulated by a user at home or any other location using just a web browser, and can transmit its master’s voice and video.
Think of it as a self-propelled Skype-cam on a stick.
A device with Segway-like balancing properties, the QB has two eyes, shaped to give it an aesthetic similar to Pixar’s Wall-E. The cameras (and screen) are mounted atop an adjustable pole, putting them at approximately eye level with your coworkers. QB has eight hours of battery life, supports 802.11g Wi-Fi, comes with a 5-megapixel video camera and a top speed of 3.5 miles per hour. A 320 x 240 LCD screen on QB offers videos and photos, and acts as a control panel.
Finding ways to make telecommuting easier for office workers or helping teams spread across different locations work together has been a major area of research and product development in robotics. Research firm Gartner estimates the video-conferencing market could grow 17.8 percent between 2008 and 2013, rising from $3.8 billion to $8.6 billion.
“Put a QB in the office and anyone who’s not there can take the robot and move it over to someone else’ desk,” he says. “After the first few minutes, people forget they are talking to a robot.”
Anybots recently caused quite a stir following a film of a QB making a trip to a local coffee shop for a scone, controlled over the web from an office a mile away;
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
“The next generation of robots will be about letting people do something remotely in several locations over the course of a day, so they don’t have to get on a plane and travel,” Anybots says. “Not having to drive or fly is a delightful advantage. That’s our Holy Grail – to make business travel obsolete.”
“No longer do you have to rely on someone to reserve a room with video conferencing, remember an appointment or set up a conference call. Simply log in to QB and interact with people just as if you were there.”
Anybots are on sale now, for a cool $15,000.
Mobile World Congress
March 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Last week more than 60,000 people from 200 countries descended upon Barcelona for the largest mobile exhibition in the world: Mobile World Congress.
This year, the latest and greatest tablets and smartphones were the centre of the show’s buzz. So what was unveiled this year?
Well, there was HP’s Touchpad, the RIM PlayBook, Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play, the HTC Desire S, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, HTC’s Flyer and LG Optimus Pad to name just a few. Tablets and smartphones weren’t the only words on people lips. There was also much talk of 4G networks. Verizon Wireless made what the company claimed was the world’s first voice over LTE call using a commercial LTE network.
So what does the rise of tablets and sense that 4G networks are on the horizon mean? People are now accustomed to consuming content on the move – and not just in their personal lives. How many people do you see every day checking their emails on smartphones or laptops? How many people in your office spend a few days a month working from home or remote offices? People no longer expect to be sitting at their desks, all day, every day.
The 21st century workforce is quite happy to work on documents when travelling to or from meetings or work through their emails on the journey to the office. As a result, networks and devices are evolving to support this. Forrester Research predicts that there will be 344 million mobile users in Europe alone by 2014 – this is 84 per cent of the Western European population. The analyst house also estimates that 40 per cent of European consumers are beginning to use mobile services beyond voice and communication services.
On a global level, research firm Gartner has revealed that global smartphone sales increased 72 per cent in 2010 to 297 million units. To cope with the explosion of mobile data traffic that devices from Apple and RIM are driving, faster mobile broadband will be welcomed with open arms by business and consumers alike.
Credit: Lucy over at Huddle
Virtual Worlds
March 20, 2010 By 1 Comment
You may or may not have heard of Second Life and Virtual Worlds. These are 3-D online simulated spaces where people, using animated avatars, can socialize, connect and interact using voice and text chat. I have to confess to finding some of this technology a little too geeky at times. I have had a play around in Second Life, but I’m not a big gamer and quickly got bored. Until that is, I was invited to participate in an online work related discussion in a virtual space. All of a sudden, a penny dropped. The potential of virtual world technologies is really quite staggering and I don’t think we’ve really woken up to this yet in the public sector.
Sure, some local authorities have used virtual worlds to simulate developments, some university’s have excellent virtual learning spaces and I’ve heard of interesting examples with school age children using the technologies to display art. However, I haven’t heard of anyone in the public sector routinely using these technologies for collaborative work purposes. With the increasing pressures on time and the carbon agenda set to force all public sector bodies to squeeze travel, I wonder whether working in virtual worlds will feature in our future.
Here are a few examples of the use of these technologies, kindly provided by Marc Duffy of Second Places, a market leader in developing innovative, interactive virtual worlds;
In January 2009 BP contacted Second Places about replicating the build of their new FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading) Vessel called Angola. This vessel is going to be a reconditioned super tanker and is being built in Singapore. We had all the plans and the designs of everything that was going to go in place. So within 2 months we were able to replicate the vessel as it would be at time of completion.
This then allowed BP to have people from all around the world the ability to log in and walk around the FPSO. It allowed the designers in Aberdeen, the project managers in London, the heath and safety in Houston and the builders in Singapore to meet at a given time in the “virtual” conference room on board the virtual FPSO and walk around the vessel looking at problems as they came to view, before the work had been done.
Some savings were simple, like when it was noted by health and safety that the soup cauldron was located across the likely walk way where people entering the mess would traverse. Simple example, but not something you would ever see looking at 2-D plans or even a 3-D walk through where there was no one else in world.
Another example from BP was the bedrooms. The FPSO came with 80 rooms, most of which were double bunk beds. However it was noted from the recreation of the room that there was only enough storage for 1 bag per room, even though there would be 2 people staying. These problems, although small, could have cost millions to change once the vessel was completed.
The project team for FPSO Angola still meet every Thursday on board the virtual recreation to see how the FPSO is developing. For the first time ever the project team and designers have not had to repeatedly shuttle back and forth to Singapore.
PADI – Professional Association of Diving Instructors
The Professional Association of Diving Instructors asked Second Places to create an interactive virtual office where they could hold E-Learning Lectures and could communicate scuba diving information in an information portal. This would allow students and teachers from all over the world the ability to attend lectures given by the most advanced PADI teachers.
People were able to interact with the lecture giving the closest real world lecture possible without the costs of travelling to Bristol, where PADI is based. This has since advanced where you can actually do a lot of the course available to the public through their 2-D Web Site through 3-D. You can simulate swimming in the ice as well as the tropics, making sure you follow the different procedures for different places. As it’s a virtual world you don’t have to do it solo, there can be someone there verbally helping you go through the virtual class, so if something doesn’t make sense you could just ask, just like in the real world.
Building schools for the future
Second Places have been involved in many schools for the future projects. Virtual world allows students, teachers and all stakeholders the ability to see and walk through the halls and classrooms before the building has been started. There is no better way to get buy-in from all the stakeholders than to actually walk the corridors and see what the school will look like. It’s also a great tool to get kids involved early in a project to get their ideas of how things should look.
Conclusion
The world we live in has changed. Travel is expensive and damaging our planet. We no longer enjoy to travel and we are constantly searching out new ways of becoming more efficient and effective. We want the ability to work from home but still be an active part of the organisation. Virtual Worlds could give people, regardless of their location, the ability to do things they just couldn’t do in the real world. The ability to interact with people from home, the ability to see and hear things that have not yet been constructed and the flexibility of doing this from anywhere in the world.
What might all this mean for the public sector in the future?
NomadTech – Resistive Screens
November 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Stantum Japan have unveiled their multi-touch, resistive touchscreen technology, showcased on a Slate PC proof of concept device.
Responsiveness and accuracy are reported to be remarkable, with the multitouch feature accommodating as many fingers as you can fit on the screen. There’s pressure sensitivity too and users can even use the thing with a paintbrush. Yes, a paintbrush.
Scalable from 2.5 to 30 inches, this can do all the gestures, swipes and rotations you could want. At face value, very impressive technology. Watch the video.
So why resistive instead of capacitive (or resistive vs iPhone / iPod Touch)?
Stantum is looking to break into all sorts of markets with their new touch panels - including mobile, Tablet and netbook markets. Hopefully we’ll see a next generation mobile device with one of their screens in the near future.
(Thanks to www.netbooked.net )
Telepresence Robots!?
November 18, 2009 By Leave a Comment
“Be two places at once with QA, telepresence robot from Anybots. Enjoy complete freedom to move fluidly and interact with others in a remote location from the ease of your home or office.”
“QA operates simply, cleanly, and quietly while still giving you a full physical presence. It allows you to see and be seen, talk and listen, and collaborate in ways and places never before possible.”
Amazing but somehow reinforces the perception of work as a place we should attend rather than an activity we can often do from different locations.
Still pretty whizzy though. I wonder if they do a ’Transformers’ version, perhaps with weaponry? Autobots or Decepticons?
