Telepresence
"Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance that they were present, or to have an effect, at a location other than their true location." - Wikipedia
Telepresence is commonly seen at theme parks. A prime example of this is The Simpsons ride. A video is displayed on a screen, but that is not the only sense being invoked. Surround sound allows the participant to hear in all directions, movement allows them to feel like they're actually falling, and machine generated smells top it off. With telepresence the participant does not simply observe the attraction, they experience it.
The telepresence of today, sophisticated manipulation of the senses to bring the person closer to the experience, can be seen to relate back to ancient Romans. They attempted to construct massive theaters to tell stories of far off adventures, even flooding the arena to make the experience more immersive.
ReplyDeleteBut the modern effort to fool the the audience seems to have arisen with the Smell-O-Vision. "It was a system that released odors during the projection of a film so that the viewer could "smell" what was happening in the movie. The technique was created by Hans Laube and made its only appearance in the 1960 film Scent of Mystery, produced by Mike Todd, Jr., son of film producer Mike Todd. The process injected 30 different smells into a movie theater's seats when triggered by the film's soundtrack." Wikipedia
It essentially was the first attempt to make an audience "feel as if they were present, to give the appearance that they were present, or to have an effect, at a location other than their true location."- Wikipedia
Having spent just over a year and a half in Second Life, I believe that it's the element of "presence" that makes it such a rich social environment. In his explication of presence, Lee (2004) defined presence as “a psychological state in which virtual objects are experienced as actual objects in either sensory or nonsensory ways” (p. 27) and may include physical, social, and self presence. Physical presence refers to the physical objects or environments that are typically experienced through visual and audio stimuli. Social presence represents the social interactions that humans exchange through media and technology. Lee posits “Just as people pay special attention to other humans more than any other physical objects, technology users pay great attention to technology-generated stimuli manifesting humanness in both physical – and psychological (e.g. personality, reciprocity, interactivity, social roles, understanding language, etc.) ways” (p. 39). He also explained, “one of the most important issues (regarding the study of presence) is the explanation of a mental mechanism that enables humans to feel presence when they use media or simulation technologies.” As he asked, “What makes human minds not notice the virtuality of incoming stimuli?” (p.47).
ReplyDeleteReading about telepresence has made me think of the value of the technologies in furthering social and environmental causes and also in addressing the issues of equity. In the future, telepresence technologies could help raise awareness about social issues such as poverty or environmental issues such as pollution. Making it so that it is possible to almost place people in poverty-stricken and polluted environments can be a powerful information and educational tool. Realistic smells and real-time images and sounds can portray a certain environment in ways never before possible. It’s one thing to read about a famine in Africa or see a video on slums in Asia, but telepresence technologies could potentially allow a far removed and dispersed audience experience a little of it firsthand. I see telepresence as an exciting new frontier and something that can change entertainment and training. But I don’t think its potential stops there. I see it also providing new avenues for us to address enduring and pressing educational, social, and ecological issues.
ReplyDeleteI was trying to think if something like The Simpson's ride or other similar amusement park rides would be telepresence. I was also thinking if something like Second Life would be considered telepresence. From doing some research and reading more about the subject I think amusement park rides like The Simpsons are not telepresence and Second Life could be considered telepresence. I think amusement park rides fall into the virtual reality category. The key difference is that in telepresence information is going both ways, you are not just passively experiencing the environment. You are participating and your actions are affecting the experience. Now if on the amusement park ride you are able to influence how the ride operates for others at a different location, then I think that would be a form of telepresence. Second Life is telepresence to me because things I do in the virtual world can affect one or more real people. Now Second Life itself is not a real world, but its occupants are real people so therefore affecting a real person in turn affects the real world.
ReplyDeleteReading about telepresence reminded me of another type of telepresence I had heard about a few years ago. A man from San Antonio, Texas named John Lockwood started a website called Live-shot.com. On the site visitors could pay a fee to control a real motorized rifle located on his Texas ranch. The rifle would have a camera connected to it, where the internet user could view what he was shooting. Lockwood would have the users shoot targets setup on his ranch. His intention was to expand the rifle to work on live animals where a ranch hand would retrieve the meat and then ship it to the online hunter. This idea came under much criticism to say the least and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department was trying to ban Internet hunting. I don’t thin Lockwood ever succeeded in his idea, but if he had, this would be a form of telepresence.
While searching for information on telepresence I kept coming up with different articles that used it in the business world. They used it to describe a new means of communication while the cost of travel is rising.
ReplyDeleteIn one article by ProAV Magazine, they explain how the participants of this means of communication "define the experience:"
How do you achieve "presence at a distance?"
Pete Nutley, director of global product marketing at Tandberg, describes telepresence this way: "It's a video meeting experience that creates the feeling of being across the table from the remote participants."
In order to achieve this experience, all participants are seated at a pre-determined distance from their respective cameras so as to appear life-size to the people at the far-end of the network connection. High-resolution, low-latency video, coupled with high quality directional audio help create this effect. And other visual cues–all telepresence rooms painted the same wall colors, equipped with the same lighting, and outfitted with the same furniture–round out the design.
"So telepresence really is about the experience," Nutley says. "When one or more of the criteria, such as background, distance from camera, desk color, etc., is not met, the experience of being in the same room deteriorates."
I have to say that I think Telemain made a very impressive point, with the idea of education at hand. Telepresence may most certainly revolutionize the education industry as computers are gradually being considered a required educational tool. I've also noticed that many definitions for the term "telepresence" have described some form of "videoconferencing," more or less. I was thinking about webcams and Skype as I read that telepresence enhances videoconferencing, and -- with what Erin pointed out in her post about business -- telepresence is revolutionizing the communications industry. Sometimes when we talk to people online, we want to feel as if we are actually with them -- telepresence may be the key to just that.
ReplyDeletetelepresent or teleabsent. . .we were there if we were supposed to be. . .if not, then we weren't. Find my ass in cyberspace - good luck. I don't even know where I left myself.
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