The internet has increased our tele-connectivity by allowing us to exchange text, images, sound, and video with anyone whose interests we share, professionally or socially, regardless of geographic location. But even with the rapid adoption of these new tools for human communication and interaction it is obvious that something is missing. Current internet applications fail to provide us with an adequate interface into the real world in which we live, work, and play.

This talk will describe one such approach to solving this problem with simple, inexpensive, internet-controlled, untethered tele-robots or PRoPs (Personal Roving Presences) to provide the sensation of tele-embodiment in a remote real space. The physical tele-robot provides video and audio links to the remote space as well as providing a visible, mobile entity with which other people can interact. PRoPs also enable their users to perform a wide gamut of human activities in the remote space, such as wandering around, conversing with people, hanging out, pointing, examining objects, reading, and making simple gestures.

The focus of this work is to identify and distill a small yet sufficient number of traits that are vital to human communication and interaction and to physically implement them on PRoPs. For more information please visit www.prop.org. This work is in collaborationewith John Canny.