Parents: Travel Guilt-Free! (NYT Article)

[S Gaissert]

This is an excerpt from a recent New York Times article. The marketing
strategy just blew me away:

> Another point-and-click household robot offers a two-way voice and
> video system that lets Mom and Dad visit with their children even when
> the parents are in a faraway hotel. This robot, ankle high and shaped
> like a disc, is connected to a home wireless network; its out-of-town
> owners can turn on a laptop computer and use the Internet to call the
> robot sitting in the living room. Then they can use the laptop’s mouse
> and keyboard to send the robot rolling around the room. On the
> computer screen, they see what the robot is seeing with its cameras,
> and they can talk with anyone near the robot’s sound system.
>
> The robot, called ConnectR and not yet on the market, is being tested
> by its manufacturer, iRobot, said Colin Angle, chief executive. It is
> expected to cost about $500.
>
> ConnectR’s camera system can show out-of-town parents the printed
> words in a book their children are holding at home, so they can read
> them a bedtime story from it. It “will allow people to visit virtually
> regardless of where they are in the world,” Mr. Angle said.

Susan G.

[k]

Wowo.  And Mr. Angle was his name-o. 

I hope you can't use it too well "incognito" because depending on the parent it could be used like a spy device (which is only fun if *you're* not the one being scoped).  Or depending on the parent it really *could* be a(n extremely different) way to visit your kids.  Technology is bound to evolve into things like this eventually.  Learning to use new technology involves a lot more than how to operate the thing: like ethics.

~Katherine