When we were stuck here in Galway because of the ashcloud, it was my dream to have a robot cafe right here in Galway.



I would book a time slot and tell them my desired location, in this case the San Francisco Airport Marriott, 1800 Old Bayshore Highway, Burlingame, CA 94010, USA, and they would ensure that a robot had found its way to my location on my chosen date and time. All I would have to do is get myself to a robot cafe anywhere in the world at the same time.

I would put on a specially made suit, glasses and earphones that would all be hooked up to the robot, and stand in one of those machines like the one Mr Incredible is trapped in:



When I would walk and move, the suit would transmit my movements to the robot. When I would talk, it would come out the speakers of the robot. I would be able to hear everything in the vicinity of the robot, and I would be able to see through it's eyes.

And voila! I would be at the conference, albeit encased in a metallic, less feminine version of myself, unless of course I had upgraded to a robot which could sense my body shape and clothing choices, and project them over the robot to create a more realistic, holistic Ellen experience for the conference attendees to converse and interact with.

So you will imagine my surprise and excitement when I walked into Y-Combinators offices in Mountain View, CA, and saw the AnyBots hanging out in the hallways:



They have been in development since 2001, so I'm about 9 years too late, but technically, watching through a web browser is not as nifty as my suit idea. (I call it my idea only because I can't remember what film or sci fi book I stole it from ;)

Imagine - you could visit places all over the world and actually walk and talk and experience them without having to leave your city. You could hang out at these foreign locations with your friends, even when they are controlling their robots in different robot cafes all over the world. You could have sensors that transmit the heat and humidity of that location to your body, but I don't know how exactly you could get food from that location to your location - slight downside as food is always a fundamental part of my travelling experience. Perhaps these God particles will help me out on that one.

Speaking of entangled God particles, it may just be that there is a future where I can transport myself, through time or through space, without any of these robot interfaces. The future is exciting, but it's probably not something I'll see in my life time. I might just have to settle for Anybots. At $15,000 a piece, it won't be long before we all have control over a virtual self, and I will be thinking even more about the impact of further reduced face to face interactions.