Hi Stuart! I'm an engineer at Suitable Technologies (makers of the Beam). Sorry to see the Beam didn't make it into the video, but it was really inspiring to see this talk. Thanks!
Hi! I've been using the Beam all over the world, it's amazing and I just wish I had one of my own. :-) (Probably need a ground crew and private plane as well!)
The beam was actually in the talk, but would you believe about five minutes before the talk there was a local problem with the Wi-Fi. Totally not on Suitable Technologies by the way.
To properly support people videoing in, conferences will need to provided dedicated WiFi on a separate channel. Current conference WiFi is reliable enough for checking email during a boring talk, but not for remote attendees.
It's hard to get conference venues to care. It might require an interpretation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (in the US) to insist that reliable WiFi to support remote video attendees is as important as reliable elevators.
I agree with what you're saying in general. In this specific case, the venue WiFi was not the issue. It was human error on the day, but not something we need to rake over here.
However, is a really interesting point about the reliable Wi-Fi in public spaces. If telepresence is going to be used as a viable way for quadriplegics like me to visit these public spaces, then we're going to need decent and dedicated Wi-Fi. Which in 2014 is both fairly easy to do, and not that expensive. But you're right, I do fear that it may need some Interpretation of legislation to make this work. In the UK we have to Disability Discrimination Act [0] which I think of is the same things as the ADA in the US.
Totally agree on the need of dedicated connections... for many reasons ;)
however often a problem with conferences and large gatherings is that even if there are separate Wifis and on different channels the (constructive/destructive) interference is still bad enough that the connection slows down anyways.
I know there are solutions out there, it's a matter of cost and time before they become widely available. (I'm hoping it will happen tomorrow ;))
I'm very happy to hear that this tech is doing something useful for you. We want to make it better. (I was the founder of Anybots, and know a lot of other people in the telepresence and drone worlds.) It's great that you're telling your story, because it's much more motivational for people working on the tech than some of the current popular use cases, like managers walking the cubicle farm while traveling.
It really is doing amazing things for me, is opening up places in worlds that would be utterly denied to me were not for these telepresence robots. For example, even if the museum has a ramp into the building, every single step between where I am and the Museum needs to be wheelchair friendly. One high kerbstone and that's me not visiting the Museum.
Telepresence solves this problem wonderfully! If you know anyone looking for a freewheeling, quadriplegic, telepresence and drone-based beta tester just point them my way. :-)
Hi Stuart, thanks for sharing this and your experience. It's very inspiring to us as we are currently developing another "extensible self" tool [0] that will empower you to "remote control" real people (we call them agents) and show you around, even where drones are not allowed or there isn't someone who can set it up for you.
Can we send you an email and ask you a few questions?
Moreover, can you share a bit how the streaming feed is setup?
Edit: sorry, missed your question about streaming! All of the hard work on the streaming for the event was done by Andrew Nesbitt.[0] He's definitely the guy to talk to about this.
The part where you talked about using FPV goggles to control a drone was particularly interesting, and admittedly, hit me right in the feels.
What's the current state of that technology? Last I knew/read, the latency between what the operator sees and what's actually happening was still high enough to make it disorienting. Is there anything you've seen / are working on that mitigates that? Is it even as much of an issue when your range of motion is constrained to your head?
my friend Henry Evans at Robots for Humanity[0] has done some testing with the Oculus Rift, he has much more limited range of motion than me and he was able to fly a Parrot drone fairly successfully. But I think when she start moving higher speeds than I think the latency is still a problem, although I've not had chance to test it.
At the moment I'm still trying to find people in the UK who can help me set up a similar sort of system, as at the moment I've been using the Parrot AR Drone coupled with NodeCopter[1] and the excellent ardrone-webflight plugin. FPV is my 100%, oh my god I'm flying from a wheelchair, ultimate dream setup, and I think I'm right at the beginning of that journey.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 48.1 ms ] threadIt's hard to get conference venues to care. It might require an interpretation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (in the US) to insist that reliable WiFi to support remote video attendees is as important as reliable elevators.
However, is a really interesting point about the reliable Wi-Fi in public spaces. If telepresence is going to be used as a viable way for quadriplegics like me to visit these public spaces, then we're going to need decent and dedicated Wi-Fi. Which in 2014 is both fairly easy to do, and not that expensive. But you're right, I do fear that it may need some Interpretation of legislation to make this work. In the UK we have to Disability Discrimination Act [0] which I think of is the same things as the ADA in the US.
[0]:http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/the-disability-discrimination-act...
however often a problem with conferences and large gatherings is that even if there are separate Wifis and on different channels the (constructive/destructive) interference is still bad enough that the connection slows down anyways.
I know there are solutions out there, it's a matter of cost and time before they become widely available. (I'm hoping it will happen tomorrow ;))
Telepresence solves this problem wonderfully! If you know anyone looking for a freewheeling, quadriplegic, telepresence and drone-based beta tester just point them my way. :-)
Moreover, can you share a bit how the streaming feed is setup?
[0] http://eyevel.com
Edit: sorry, missed your question about streaming! All of the hard work on the streaming for the event was done by Andrew Nesbitt.[0] He's definitely the guy to talk to about this.
[0]: https://twitter.com/teabass
What's the current state of that technology? Last I knew/read, the latency between what the operator sees and what's actually happening was still high enough to make it disorienting. Is there anything you've seen / are working on that mitigates that? Is it even as much of an issue when your range of motion is constrained to your head?
At the moment I'm still trying to find people in the UK who can help me set up a similar sort of system, as at the moment I've been using the Parrot AR Drone coupled with NodeCopter[1] and the excellent ardrone-webflight plugin. FPV is my 100%, oh my god I'm flying from a wheelchair, ultimate dream setup, and I think I'm right at the beginning of that journey.
[0]:http://r4h.org/ [1]:http://ardrone2.parrot.com/ [2]:http://nodecopter.com/ [3]:http://eschnou.github.io/ardrone-webflight/