Telepresence

Back in 2000, a bunch of us at a session of eLearning Forum debated whether technology could ever make online sessions as good as being there. Verisimilitude was tough to imagine in the days when transmitting a video the size of this photo was state of the art.

Cisco Telepresence makes is easier to imagine (though it still lacks online transfer of pheromones.) You walk into a room like the one above. Half the circular table is real; half is a life feed from a similar room anywhere else in the world. Cisco WebEx’s Bob Lee and I had a brief session after lunch today: