Who came on to the scene and changed the way we think about traveling. Sure we’ve had taxies for years but Uber introduced the possibility that anyone can use their own car to do it and even introduced the service to rural areas.
Since then it’s expanded from food and grocery delivery and so much more. Now… some folks in Japan are introducing the idea of a “Human Uber” of sorts — where you can pay someone else to live your life for you.
According to the ChameleonMask website, the technology “uses a real human as a surrogate for another remote user,” by giving the surrogate “a mask-shaped display that shows a remote user’s live face, and a voice channel transmits a remote user’s voice.” Rekimoto reportedly described the experience of using ChameleonMask as “surprisingly natural,” which does sound surprising.
Big picture, you need to be in a meeting but also take your spouse to lunch but you double booked them! What do you do? Why you pay someone wear an iPad on their face and attend one or the other as you video chat back and forth.
It’s utterly ridiculous! ChameleonMask recommends getting a surrogate who has a similar body type.
“Human Uber,” developed in Japan, provides a way to attend events remotely using another person’s body. “It’s surprisingly natural” says its inventor, Jin Rekimoto of Sony #emtechasia pic.twitter.com/WZHPVcZ6M0
— Will Knight ([email protected]) (@willknight) January 30, 2018
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy technology and the new stuff we develop all the time but it’s stupid moves like this that makes me question peoples thought process.
As reported by Daily Mail:
Remote users, or ‘directors,’ can communicate with their surrogate via a private line, where they can give them instructions directly, such as where to look, point, wave, etc.
The private line is supported by Google Hangouts’ audio chat feature, according to the researchers.
The surrogate has to mute the private line in order to communicate on the public line, which is the channel that lets the user talk to people remotely.
But even the Human Uber’s advanced interface can’t prevent one extremely important factor from standing in the way of whether or not it appears realistic.
If your surrogate’s body looks nothing like yours, it’s going to look pretty awkward.
