Normally I don’t post stuff I get in email but Fred Nikgohar, CEO over at RoboDynamics, was good enough to answer some questions thoroughly and promptly. Great stuff here. (Posted with permission!)
EXTERMINATE! Ok, sorry, couldn’t help it… you must be -> this <-- geek to appreciate that. On with Fred's email:
IvanAnywhere is a great roadmap as to how this may work. However, whereas IA is a one-off robot, TiLR is the first commercial product that will be mass-produced and more importantly, mass supported.
With regards to the UI and our app in general, is simply our Tester App internally. It is meant to demonstrate the capabilities of the robot. Back in August 2008, we began a series of beta tests with various customers where we placed robots for 4-8 week periods in exchange for feedback and usage data.
It turns out – as you so indicated – that most people who use it have a tendency for FPS Games… and at any rate, the point-and-click is not necessarily the best way to interact with the robot at all times (or for all people).
The actual application that we’ll release with the robot will only require a Flash plug-in and will be completely web-based. This means we’ll be able to support any platform without any further need for download/install. All user preferences will be saved in the cloud so a user will become truly machine-independent.
As for navigation, we will support two modes: Keyboard (FPS) and Mouse. Both modes are supported simultaneously and the user doesn’t need to take any further action to switch… they use either a keyboard action or a mouse action or even a combination of the two. If you want more detail on the platform technologies, you can read my blog post about our next software iteration here. We will be doing the first public demo of this new version on Feb 12th at the Twiistup 5 event in Southern California.
Aside from getting feature feedback on TiLR, we learned a number of other lessons. One of them is the issue of IT security, which is a rather loaded issue. In most companies, getting a wireless device on the wireless network requires a number of security provisions – and ultimately – some real person who will vouch for that machine on the network. Inherently a wireless device that can be used by any number of people (eg TiLR) is problematic for IT Security folks.
There are other concerns – as you indicated – about a roving camera inside a premises. This is both an IT risk as well as a physical security risk. Before I tell you how we’ve addressed these issues so far, let me also add that this is an area that we are still learning and many more iterations are sure to follow… (in fact, I am actively looking for a security consultant to help us here, and would appreciate a referral if you know someone who can be of assistance…).
The main thing to remember is that TiLR is simply a mobile Windows XP Pro box. It rides on the existing networks, can be provisioned using the existing IT Security infrastructure, and deployed/supported with the existing IT Staff. One of the features of our solution is the TiLR Server, a thin web-based registrar server that maintains the status of each robot, and initiates contact between a user/robot. You can think of TiLR Server the same way you think of the server your Skype or MSN Messenger client connects to. The server keeps track of who’s online (ie, which robot is online) and what is their status (in-use, available, etc).
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The benefit of the registrar server is that you don’t need to remember your Skype buddy’s IP address – you simply click and choose who (or which robot) you want to connect to. An additional benefit of TiLR Server is some basic auditing feature we’ve built in… which basically keeps track of who logged into which robot, for how long, etc.
It also maintains Robot Levels and User Levels – which prevents an unauthorized user to access the robot on the 3rd floor which only certain employees should access. As I indicated, however, this is a fluid area for us and we’re learning as we go along. I fully realize that we must do a lot more work in this area.
If you are on a Windows machine, feel free to download our application (http://robodynamics.com/beta_support.asp#tcc) and I would love to give you a demo. Or, you can wait another month until we have a stable version of the Flash based client. Either way, I am very curious to hear your thoughts, as well as your readers’ thoughts, as to some of the issues and uses of this technology.
I had first heard of “telepresence robots” on a Spark radio show from 2007. It was an interesting experiment, but at the time I thought that’s all it would ever be.
Since then, however, I’ve been in contact with some in the field and see ongoing development in the area. Here are two videos that will give you an overview:
(Side note: ever notice that nobody can use a capital “i” or “e” in the names of their products anymore? God we’ve all become such… geeks!)
One little fact not expressly mentioned is that both robots feature proximity sensors to keep them from bumping into anything. Obviously, without that, this whole thing would be a non-starter.
I have to wonder about ease of use and security concerns, not to mention display sizes… but those issues aside (assuming imminent upgrades), from what I understand at least the folks over at the Waterloo Sybase offices really respond well to working with a robot. Until we see the results of wider test marketing, however, it’s hard to tell how the average office might operate with robots wandering around.
Is this the future? Honestly I don’t know, but it is the kind of thing that needs to be attempted before we can give a definite answer. Gut reactions are the enemy here.
Of course, as soon as I imagine an office full of these things, all piloted by workers at home, the question immediately becomes “well why not just use a virtual world?”
It has been a very long time since I’ve been able to talk publicly about anything happening over at Clever Zebra, so it’s with more than a bit of glee that I pass on word about a very important eBook.
Virtual Worlds for Business is the result of quite a lot of study and footwork which has resulted in a continuously updated, comprehensive guide to enterprise virtual worlds for meetings, training and collaborative work. For details I’ll let you read the official announcement, but there is one bit I thought I’d draw your attention to:
Even before launch day it managed to generate both overwhelming praise and the threat of a lawsuit. Not bad going eh?
This is the first of a series of blog posts dedicated to answering two questions:
Why are virtual worlds a good alternative to existing technologies?
How can one best get a Return On Investment (ROI) from virtual world ventures?
I hope to give you lots of references as I go, but for this first one please forgive my off-the-top-of-my-head handling of the subject matter as time is a bit short. The source material for all of this comes from dozens of studies, articles and experiences I’ve come across or done myself over the past few years. If you have something that applies, please place it in the comments!
One of the most common questions I get about virtual worlds is simply: don’t webcams do the same thing, but better?
There’s a certain logic to this, after all. On a webcam you can read facial expressions, track body language, and communicate in most of the same ways you can in real life. Why should we use a virtual space with an avatar if webcams are so cheap, easy to use, and hold a proven track record of stability?
As it turns out there are some serious psychological and physiological reasons for why webcam experiences are necessarily limited to casual conversation. In order to understand why we need to take a good look at how the mind interacts with the computer screen.
When you look at a screen, your mind bends space
The easiest way to understand what happens when a person looks at a computer or television screen is that, in their minds at least, only that screen exists. This is why you can sit fifteen feet away from a 30 inch faded display in a meeting and still get something out of the training video. While this may be the scene from the back of the room…
… your mind does a lot of filtering and resizing so that all you really see is this:
Right away, marketing folk should be paying attention here. As we all know, the more “space” your message or logo occupies in a customer’s perception the more mindshare you actually have.
So then does the shape of the screen matter?
This phenomena also goes a long way toward explaining why screens are getting wider instead of just bigger: most people see with two eyes, one next to the other. This makes our field of vision a rectangle close to the shape of a car’s windshield.
This means that a 16×9 widescreen feels much more natural and comfortable than a regular 4×3 of the same size. Mentally you’re able to “zoom in” with a widescreen much more easily. This is also why most memorable corporate logos are square or wide, but rarely tall.
vs.
That’s not to say that 4×3 screens are going anywhere. They’re taller so they’ll continue to sell as they seem bigger at first glance. Besides, when you’re scrolling through a lot of web pages with text information organized in columns, tall is important and practical.
What happens, however, when you’re not just trying to dump text on people? What happens when you’re trying to interact with them and make an emotional connection? What happens when you want them to feel like they’re actually immersed in your experience?
Was LBJ a “close talker”?
There’s another problem with the whole webcam phenomena. Remember how we discussed the “mental zoom” people apply to screens, filtering out all surrounding data? Well, they’ll do that with images inside the screen too!
Let’s say you take a webcam-enabled VOIP call from LBJ here:
Sure, it’s just a small 300 pixel wide image. After talking for awhile though, you’ll find you just have to look away to continue the conversation because his face is completely filling your vision. It’s like his face is just inches from yours, uncomfortably close.
Socially this gets pretty awkward, and strictly speaking you can’t really look away anyhow because they’ll see you “not paying attention”. That issue comes up again as your conversation continues and you notice LBJ never makes eye contact: he’s looking at his screen, not you! (Well, he is looking at you, but he sees you’re not looking at him either… kind of.)
This all happens in your unconscious of course, but the end result is that one of two things happens:
You start to feel really awkward, or…
You stop taking the conversation too seriously, instead opting for the “crowded party” feeling.
This is where avatars come in
The irony is that you can take a conversation into a virtual space filled with fluorescent colors and have a serious conversation far more easily than you could on a webcam.
The entire virtual world phenomena works because it accomplishes one simple thing: the perception of space. This is one of the most underestimated and wildly powerful tools of the past decade. Without even needing 3D glasses, a virtual space moves another person’s “presence” to a comfortable distance while still creating a sense that you are somehow physically together.
Take a good look at this pic of one of Torley’s meetings I went to awhile back. In fact, stop now and click on the image to see a larger version in order to follow along (this one will open in a new window).
You get the sense here that you’re actually standing just behind the guy in the pinstripe and the girl with the yellow hair. Stand there for a moment and take in the scene. A conversation is underway. Take a second now and think: what’s your first impulse?
For most people, they want to walk in and have a seat. After that they’ll look around the circle and participate in the conversation via typed text or with voice, and sometimes both. They’ll be “close” to the people they want to be close to without that “close talker” feeling.
So we worked around the distance issue, but something else happened. Did you catch it?
Three learning modes in one conversation
Humans tend to be biased toward one of three basic learning modes: audio, visual, or kinesthetic. You probably understand this intuitively already but let’s break it down real quick:
Audio learners need to hear things for them to ring true.
Visual learners need to see something for it to become clear.
Kinesthetic learners learn by doing, or at the very least by feeling like they experienced something.
These aren’t absolute for any one person (contrary to what some might tell you, by the way), nor are you really stuck in any one mode forever. People do, however, tend to have a preference at any given time.
This means that if you’re on a webcam conversation, you’re overwhelmed if you’re in visual mode and squirming if you’re in kinesthetic mode. Audio learners may not notice a problem at all here, but the person they’re speaking to might.
By way of contrast, the virtual meeting above works with a full mix. Visual folk can look around the room to “place” the voice they’re hearing or the text they’re reading (critical for them if they want to remember anything that happened!). Auditory people can just sit back and chat, occasionally glancing at the typed text. As for the kinesthetic people, well, they’re in absolute heaven.
The thing is, you’d be surprised how many leaders tend to be kinesthetic. It’s a mode that lends itself to getting things done, after all.
The best part: these people are all communicating in whatever mode works for them, and they all “see eye-to-eye” or “hear what’s being said” or “feel they have an understanding”. The entire “room” leaves having fully appreciated the conversation. Even in a real-world meeting that might not have happened, as non-auditory people wouldn’t have had the option to use text chat!
Display dimensions, revisited
We also get a bit of a cheat with virtual worlds: the display is inadvertently a wider rectangle than your standard webcam image. This is actually a happy accident of interface design. Application designers discovered a long time ago that they needed to put the menus and controls either at the top or the bottom, and rarely use the sides for anything other than “content”.
You’ll see this general philosophy in word processors, video editing suites, and virtual spaces. If you’re going to be immersed in what you’re doing, the content must be wider than tall. It’s only in applications like Adobe Photoshop, where most of the users use wide screens already, that you can get away with putting controls on both sides.
(NOTE: I realize that heads-up displays are almost an exception here. They tend to sit on the sides comfortably, although we usually try to “dock” them at the top or bottom. They have the advantage of being interfaces that we can look right through, so we can cheat the whole issue there.)
Conclusions
Virtual space experiences work better than a webcam experience for three reasons:
You can maintain some “personal space”.
Whatever learning mode you’re in, chances are you’ll do fine.
The experience fills your field of vision far more readily.
Again, this entire post is off the top of my head. If I’ve missed something or if you’ve written something that can expand on these points, feel free to add a link in the comments.
Next time on ROI in Virtual Worlds: “Meetings 101″.
Headlines about virtual worlds just from the last week. See the archive page for past weeks.
Seems like it’s numbers week this week. Everybody is tossing around figures relating to usage, investment, and whatever else they can think of. I’ve only linked a small number of them as it starts to all feel a bit like marketing hype rather than real information. Just remember what Mark Twain said: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
Disclaimer: As with everything on my blog, the opinions expressed here are mine and do not reflect on Clever Zebra, the vBusiness Expo, my friends, my family, my blip channel, any of the other “Jack of All Strange” stuff that I do, etc etc etc… k here we go:
Top Stories
Moggle Raising $10M for Development Platform
Moggle is working on a platform to develop at the convergence of MMOGs, virtual worlds, and social networks. Need more? They’ll be “thee first truly end-to-end browser based online game development and delivery platform”. I still don’t get it… will need to hunt down more info here. Somebody thinks the platform is worth $10M anyhow.
IMVU Picks Up $10M in Series D Led by Best Buy Capital
Whoop, I think that’s it. Looking back over the last couple of months we’ve seen constant VC investment in virtual worlds, and with IMVU getting Series D from Best Buy Capital you can pretty much call this a “virtual worlds gold rush”. “Tough economic times” be damned, investors are seeing something in virtual worlds.
Meetsee Simplifies Collaboration for Small Businesses
I don’t know much about it yet, but it seems to be a very basic meeting space that enables webcams and file trading. No idea how practical it is in the face of things like Qwaq, and jury’s still out on the effectiveness of 2D/2.5D interaction. Perhaps worth a closer look though. Screenshot:
Industry Leaders Predict Growth for Virtual Goods in VWM Industry Forecast
60+ executives and analysts from the virtual worlds industry are surveyed here and they predict growth. Of course, if you survey any professional from any industry they generally predict growth. Still, interesting reading FWIW.
Predicting 2009: Channel consolidation, more virtualization, less Second Life
Always good to hear differing opinions. IT pros have a bit of a history of detesting Second Life, preventing employees from logging in and telling executives there couldn’t possibly be any good reason for them to want to do something that’s so hard on the machines. Again, FWIW.
Acklam Grange launches 3D virtual school
A private school launches a 3D space, but really I’m just into this story because of this pic of how cool these guys look in modern polarized 3D glasses. Here they are mid-rap:
Government and Military
Obama’s Is First Web 2.0 Inauguration
If you owned anything running electricity, chances are you heard all about the details of inauguration day. Bit of a contrast from when Bush had to be rushed to the White House away from an angry mob on the day of his inauguration…
Moderne Interactive to Launch Adobe eLearning Experience in Second Life
Press release. Adobe launches a presence to promote Captivate 4 and the eLearning Suite products. Live events for the first few days, no idea if the plan is for their island to become a ghost town afterward. This is as much an ad for the marketing company, Moderne Interactive, as it is for Adobe.
Sony Electronics holds a virtual trade show
Notably not held in the Home platform, but rather in the InXpo space. Guys, if you can’t fake confidence in Home then how are the rest of us supposed to? Anyhow, interesting quote here:
Normally, Shapiro said that the company would do a road show across 15 cities, talking to 200 to 400 people at each single-day event. Shapiro guessed that the virtual trade cost less than 50 percent of a real world event, not to mention that most of the virtual trade show material can be reused.
Meta-Mole Launching Searchable Index for Virtual Worlds
“a searchable directory of developer-submitted information on virtual worlds,” along the same lines as MMOGCHART I suppose but with user-submitted content. We’ve seen projects like these come and go over the years, but this one may have a shot. We’ll see!
IBM Demoing Sametime3D for Brainstorming in OpenSim
IBM translates Lotus Sametime into 3-space. Interesting that they’re throwing support behind OpenSim rather than that firewalled Second Life experiment they had run awhile back. Demo video:
