The Social Engineer

Test Driving the Beam for Launch48 Business Model

This weekend, you mght be one of the lucky people being invited to test-drive a Beam Smart Presence Device in London, so as to get a sense of your interest in using this device.

The team here at PilotPresence is chipping in and testing out the concept of RPD Rental – or “instant personing” and please feel free to help out in an way you can.

The team is part of a Oxygen Startups / Launch48…

The Verge misses the point of telepresence devices

So The Verge had one of it’s reporters from England experience remote presence – or robotic telepresence using our favorite low-cost device, the double.

As you can see in the attached video, he had as much fun using the device as the WSJ person did while using the Anybot in their New York office.

Couple of things we wanted to discuss here – which sadly, as a reporter uses the device, they tend to…

Orange opens the first (okay, second) major sales channel with Ub-y

Last Thursday, Orange France announced a new product offering, the Ub-y (evoking the word ubiquity), is essentially a rebranded Beam+ from Suitable Technologies. On Friday, we caught up with Laurent Marchou, Director of Open Innovation with focus on Robotics and IoT (Internet of Things) for Orange France.

While the announcement of the Beam+ is over nine months old (from the 2014 CES Show), an…

China’s answer to the double: the PadBot

Recently, another player popped up in the telepresence robotics world. And that offering is the PadBot.

Now, in looking at the product, it has incredible similarities to various other players like vGo and double – a low-cost base and tablet headpiece.

But to create differentiation, PadBot is offering a couple of features that have been seen in other devices:

Tilting Head– similar to the vGo’s…

EVALUATION: double from double Robotics

After a number of months, we here at Pilot Presence got our hands on an actual double itself and have spent a good amount of time using the device for engaging in what we would call proper proxy presence – being in two locations at once and engaging in work-related conversations instead of pure entertainment.

In our reading of the evals of the other devices by other reporters, we noted that the…

BBC Focus Magazine evaluates the Beam, double and Kubi

We here at Pilot Presence have an affection for people using telepresence devices and, back in March, the BBC contacted us to see if they could borrow a Beam for testing for an article from their monthly science magazine, Focus.

The ensuring article, found on news stands and on their iPad app, evaluates the Beam Pro, the double, the Kubi and the Romo.

We are happy to share a scanned-in version of…

Edward Snowden appears at TED2014 via a Beam!

Simply put, why was Scott Hassan in Vancouver? Because TED2014 was happening there – and, instead of bringing Snowden on American soil, the Beam offered Snowden a way of connecting via remote presence. And Chris Anderson demonstrated the excellent way of communicating as a remote person incredibly well.

photo credit @jamesjoaquin

photo credit @chrisfralic

Remote Presence Links for March 18, 2014

One of those things when running your own site is that it can get so overwhelming that you can not remember when you are to publish each and every article you find. And recently, while here at InnoRobo 2014, a number of great articles have risen to the top to show others what is happening in the world of remote presence. To wit:

Hassan to present keynote at Xconomy Robo Madness in April – followi…

iRobot announces availability of Ava 500 to “regular” customers

Fresh off a trip to CES (back in January), it looks like iRobot is reacting to market forces and announcing the “availability” of the Ava 500 in time for the Enterprise Connect Conference in Orlando.

We have discussed the Ava 500 a number of times in the past and will have our assessment of the device soon, but for the benefit of iRobot, we are happy to share the announcement video for the Ava…

PilotPresence at MIPIM 25

This past week, the team from PilotPresence visited Cannes, France to demonstrate their two Beams and a double at the London Stand with Canary Wharf at MIPIM 25. Due to the generosity of the team at Level39, we were able to show both the concept of piloting from locations in England and the US while allowing the MIPIM visitors to experience “remote presence” in the pantry of Level39.

Unlike a…

Suitable announces a little Beam (or actually the Beam+)

Last week, at CES, we stopped by a number of the remote presence booths and caught up with the…

Readers – in our recent travels, we were walking along the edges of the Hard Rock Casino at the Robotics on the Runway, sponsored by CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) and Living in Digital Times and we ran into the team from Double Robotics.

For the…

Anybots shows off their Q(X) Virtual Presence

Wow – when the Xmas season happens, all of the players come out with new toys. Polycom had their…