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Comment by Sidnicious | Hacker News Reader

Why not attend by telepresence? Let him present by video and hook him up with a Double or similar internet-controllable robot to talk to people around the conference. Or go full-on Bluth and pair up with an American proxy wearing a headset.

This sucks, sure, but there's always another way.

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I've been thinking you could hook up a cam/mic to one of those Roomba vacuum 'bots and then you could cruise around the conference and network with your colleagues just as though you were there. I understand those things have wifi already, so....

The coolest part would be bumping into other Roombas that represent colleagues from elsewhere (you'd need a way to distinguish from an ordinary, autonomous Roomba). There could even be a Roomba room just for them!

And on the plus side, to escape any awkward conversations you can simply start vacuuming!

Someone did this a while back -- it made HN, but I don't remember who was behind it. It had a camera and an LCD display and could travel between offices and conference rooms in an office building several states away, attending meetings and generally hanging out with coworkers.

I think you mean this:

http://www.doublerobotics.com/

If this would become common (or any "other way"), it could very well be made illegal shortly after and requires some sort of visa. The issue is not technical, it's political.

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