We have had “telepresence”-style conference rooms for years. HP’s Halo is used at numerous corporations to create conference rooms where the people appear to be in the same room. These types of conference rooms are very effective in erasing the distance between people, and allow better communications between participants.

Robotic telepresence takes this to the next logical step. Mozilla uses robots made by Willow Garage in Menlo Park, CA. (This Times article is a great plug for them – but, if it works, why not?)

Check out the videos: David Pogue does not appear to get it. But, the video of the team at Mozilla shows its potential.

This current version – a “screen on a stick” as one Times staffer mentions in the Pogue video – is really a first version. Sure, there are no arms, and you can’t climb stairs. So what? In five years, better versions will be everywhere in forward-thinking high tech companies and other organizations where the work is global. There will be home kits for people to build, too, because it is just too cool for science-oriented families to pass up.

Why will this be ubiquitous? Because this type of system allows for spontaneity – the you start up a robot in the place you need to be, and you’re there. No need to ask permission to be on someone else’s computer (like with video chat), and no need to be limited to a conference room where people are forced to come to you. In the robot scenario, it’s like walking in the front door. you can walk through the halls, chat with people without the formal limitation of being computer-a-computer. Of course this has legs. So to speak.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!

I had the opportunity to play around with an iPad last week, and it is a really great device. Movies work great, books look good, lots of interesting apps. Of course it will eat into Netbook sales. It is too early to tell if the data from Morgan Stanley shows a correlation or not, but if so, this is quite a sudden turn-around.

Third Party Support, Yes or No and

The Three Rules of Reports

Check them out, and comment freely!

This is going to be a very hot device, as I mentioned when it was announced. That said, I am waiting for version 2. I expect that the iPad will have a camera in the next version, and I am sure that there will be a few bugs here and there that will be addressed.

I think the iPad is a transition point. We will start seeing all kinds of uses for this device, not just consumer entertainment, but productivity uses. I wrote about a few in my earlier post. I am looking forward to seeing how people put the iPad to work. I am looking forward to seeing how the iPad’s interface and usability encroaches on the traditional machines.

The iPad is the spearhead, not the end-all. There will be more to follow, from Google, HP, Sony, and others. People who have issues with the iPad (its lack of Flash, its use of the Apple App Store, for two) will have other devices with similar capabilities soon, just as there are phones out there that are similar to the iPhone.

Today is the start of it. It all starts today.