Product Code Database
Telepresence is the appearance or sensation of a person being present at a place other than their true location, via telerobotics or video.
Telepresence requires that the users' senses interact with specific stimuli in order to provide the feeling of being in that other location. Additionally, users may be given the ability to affect the remote location. In this case, the user's position, movements, actions, voice, etc. may be sensed to transmit and duplicate in the remote location to bring about this effect. Therefore information may be traveling in both directions between the user and the remote location.
A popular application is found in videotelephony, the highest possible level of videotelephony. Telepresence via video deploys greater technical sophistication and improved fidelity of both sight and sound than in traditional videoconferencing. Technical advancements in mobile collaboration have also extended the capabilities of videoconferencing beyond the boardroom for use with Mobile device, enabling collaboration independent of location.
A similar or identical concept is telexistence, which was first proposed by Susumu Tachi in Japan in 1980S.Tachi, K.Tanie and K.Komoriya: Evaluation device of mobility aids for the blind,
Japanese Patent 1462696 filed on December 26, 1980.
and 1981S.Tachi, K.Tanie and K.Komoriya: Operation method of manipulators with sensoryinformation display functions, Japanese Patent 1458263 filed on January 14, 1981. as patents and the first report was published in Japanese in 1982S.Tachi and M.Abe: Study on Telexistence (I) -Desigan of Visual Display-, Proceedings of the 21st SICE Annual Conference, pp.167-168, Tokyo, July 28–30, 1982. and in English in 1984. (1985). 9781461598848 ISBN 9781461598848
The Brother Assassin, written by Fred Saberhagen in 1969, introduced the complete concept for a telepresence master-slave humanoid system. In the novel, the concept is described as follows: "And a moment later it seemed to all his senses that he had been transported from the master down into the body of the slave-unit standing beneath it on the floor. As the control of its movements passed over to him, the slave started gradually to lean to one side, and he moved its foot to maintain balance as naturally as he moved his own. Tilting back his head, he could look up through the slave's eyes to see the master-unit, with himself inside, maintaining the same attitude on its complex suspension." The term telepresence, a neologism due to the futurist Patrick Gunkel, was introduced to the public in a 1980 article by Minsky, who outlined his vision for an adapted version of the older concept of telerobotics that focused on giving a remote participant a feeling of actually being present at a different location. One of the first systems to create a fully immersive illusion of presence in a remote location was the Virtual fixture platform developed in 1992 at the U.S. Air Force's Armstrong Labs by inventor Louis Rosenberg. The system included stereoscopic image display from the remote environment as well as immersive touch feedback using a full upper-body exoskeleton.
The first commercially successful telepresence company, Teleport (which was later renamed TeleSuite), was founded in 1993 by David Allen and Herold Williams. Human Productivity Lab Whitepaper Before TeleSuite, they ran a resort business from which the original concept emerged because they often found businesspeople would have to cut their stays short to participate in important meetings. Their idea was to develop a technology that would allow businesspeople to attend their meetings without leaving the resorts so that they could lengthen their hotel stays.
Hilton Hotels had originally licensed to install them in their hotels throughout the United States and other countries, but use was low. The idea lost momentum, with Hilton eventually backing out. TeleSuite later began to focus less on the hospitality industry and more on business-oriented telepresence systems. Shareholders eventually held enough stock to replace the company's original leadership, which ultimately led to its collapse. David Allen purchased all of the assets of TeleSuite and appointed Scott Allen as president of the new company called Destiny Conferencing.
Destiny Conferencing licensed its patent portfolio to Hewlett-Packard which became the first large company to join the telepresence industry, soon followed by others such as Cisco and Polycom (now called Poly). After forming a distribution agreement with Pleasanton-based Polycom (now Poly), Destiny Conferencing sold on January 5, 2007, to Polycom (now Poly) for $60 million.
A telepresence research project started in 1990. Located at the University of Toronto, the Ontario Telepresence Project (OTP) was an interdisciplinary effort involving social sciences and engineering. Its final report stated that it "...was a three year, $4.8 million pre-competitive research project whose mandate was to design and field trial advanced media space systems in a variety of workplaces in order to gain insights into key sociological and engineering issues. The OTP, which has ended in December 1994, was part of the International Telepresence Project which linked Ontario researchers to their counterparts in four European nations. The Project's major sponsor was the Government of Ontario, through two of its Centres of Excellence—the Information Technology Research Centre (ITRC) and the Telecommunications Research Institute of Ontario (TRIO)."
Mobile collaboration systems combine the use of video, audio and on-screen drawing capabilities using newest generation hand-held mobile devices to enable multi-party conferencing in real-time, independent of location. Benefits include cost-efficiencies resulting from accelerated problem resolution, reductions in downtimes and travel, improvements in customer service and increased productivity.
In order to achieve this, the user may be provided with either a very large (or wraparound) screen, or Stereoscopic mounted directly in front of the eyes. The latter provides a particularly convincing 3D sensation. The movements of the user's head must be sensed, and the camera must mimic those movements accurately and in real time. This is important to prevent unintended motion sickness.
Another source of future improvement to telepresence displays, compared by some to , is a projected display technology featuring life-sized imagery.
Sound is generally the easiest sensation to implement with high fidelity, based on the foundational telephone technology dating back more than 130 years. Very high-fidelity sound equipment has also been available for a considerable period of time, with Stereo being more convincing than monaural sound.
The more closely the robot re-creates the form factor of the human hand, the greater the sense of telepresence. The complexity of robotic effectors varies greatly, from simple one axis grippers, to Shadow Hand.
Haptic teleoperation refers to a system that provides some sort of tactile force feedback to the user, so the user feels some approximation of the weight, firmness, size, and/or texture of the remote objects manipulated by the robot. A new form of technology, called collaborative telepresence, is currently being developed which will eventually be used to collaborate with others while seeming like you are in the same room as the other person, keeping a normal social distance. Collaborative telepresence uses haptic sensors like these to allow a sense of touch.
More modern roaming telepresence robots may include an ability to operate Autonomous robot. The robots can map out the space and be able to avoid obstacles while driving themselves between rooms and their docking stations.
Adaptive telepresence solutions may use the same technology, but the environments at both ends are not highly controlled and hence often differ. Adaptive solutions differ from telepresence lite solutions not in terms of control of environments, but in terms of integration of technology. Adaptive solutions use a managed service, whereas telepresence lite solutions use components that someone must integrate.
Rarely will a telepresence system provide such a transparent implementation with such comprehensive and convincing stimuli that the user perceives no differences from actual presence. But the user may set aside such differences, depending on the application.
The fairly simple telephone achieves a limited form of telepresence using just the human sensory element of hearing, in that users consider themselves to be talking to each other rather than talking to the telephone itself.
Watching television, for example, although it stimulates our primary senses of vision and hearing, rarely gives the impression that the watcher is no longer at home. However, television sometimes engages the senses sufficiently to trigger emotional responses from viewers somewhat like those experienced by people who directly witness or experience events. Televised depictions of sports events as an example can elicit strong emotions from viewers.
As the screen size increases, so does the sense of immersion, as well as the range of subjective mental experiences available to viewers. Some viewers have reported a sensation of genuine vertigo or motion sickness while watching IMAX movies of flying or outdoor sequences.
Because most currently feasible telepresence gear leaves something to be desired; the user must suspend disbelief to some degree, and choose to act in a natural way, appropriate to the remote location, perhaps using some skill to operate the equipment. In contrast, a telephone user does not see herself as "operating" the telephone but merely talking to another person with it.
Presence is very similar to distal attribution or externalization which is like projecting one's presence and mind beyond the limits of our sensory organs and perceiving the environment in such a way. A distinction is made between two separate perceptions. The first being the unmediated perceptions in which we are unable to feel anything beyond our physical surroundings. The second being the mediated presence through technology which forces us to suddenly perceive two different environments at the same time: The one immediately around us and the one projected for us through technology. Mediated experiences are not limited to virtual technology and can also be experienced with spatially distant places such as space with a telescope or a camera.
Recently, teleconferencing has been used in medicine (telemedicine or telematics), mainly employing audio-visual exchange, for the performance of real time remote surgical operations – as demonstrated in Regensburg, Germany in 2002. (2026). 9781586033750, IOS Press. ISBN 9781586033750 In addition to audio-visual data, the transfer of haptic (tactile) information has also been demonstrated in telemedicine.
The benefits of enabling schoolchildren to take an active part in exploration have also been shown by the JASON and the NASA Ames Research Center programs. The ability of a pupil, student, or researcher to explore an otherwise inaccessible location is a very attractive proposition; For example, locations where the passage of too many people is harming the immediate environment or the artifacts themselves, e.g. undersea exploration of coral reefs, ancient Egyptian tombs, and more recent works of art.
Another application is for the remote classroom which allows a professor to teach students in different campuses at the same time. An example of this application is in classrooms of the law schools of Rutgers University. Two identical rooms are located in two metropolitan areas. Each classroom is equipped with studio lighting, audio, and video conference equipment connected to a 200-inch monitor on the wall that students face to give an impression that they are all in the same classroom. This allows professors to be on either campus and facilitates the interaction among students in both campuses during the classes.
In 1998, Diller and Scofidio created the "Refresh", an Internet-based art installation that juxtaposed a live web camera with recorded videos staged by professional actors. Each image was accompanied with a fictional narrative which made it difficult to distinguish which was the live web camera.
In 1993, Eduardo Kac and Ed Bennett created a telepresence installation "Ornitorrinco on the Moon", for the international telecommunication arts festival "Blurred Boundaries" (Entgrenzte Grenzen II). It was coordinated by Kulturdata, in Graz, Austria, and was connected around the world.
From 1997 to the present Ghislaine Boddington of shinkansen and body>data>space has explored, in a collaboration process she has called The Weave The Weave, Virtual presence physical beings – from telegraph to telecast – a reflection on virtual beingness Ghislaine Boddington November 2000, commissioned by ResCen, Middlesex University using performing arts techniques, the extended use of telepresence into festivals, arts centres and clubs and has directed numerous workshops leading to exploration of telepresence by many artists worldwide. This methodology has been used extensively to develop skills in tele-intuition for young people in preparation for the future world of work through the body>data>space / NESTA project "Robots and Avatars" an innovative project explores how young people will work and play with new representational forms of themselves and others in virtual and physical life in the next 10–15 years.
An overview of telepresence in dance and theatre through the last 20 years is given in «Excited Atoms» "Excited Atoms", Excited Atoms outlines a history of virtual mobility in performance, presents the main types of work with inspiring current examples and traces some of the most critical issues and motivations for artists, cultural producers and promoters to collaborate, share, make, question, present and innovate using virtual mobility. research document by Judith Staines (2009) which one can download from the On The Move website.
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