Nokia’s new Jeppe teleconferencing device meets requirements you probably didn’t even know you had. What can Jeppe do? Jeppe covers all of your basic tele-conferencing needs–it allows people in two locations to talk, hands-free. But here is where it gets interesting…
What happens if one person in one of those locations needs to get up to, say, wash the dishes in the middle of the conference?
Don’t laugh! In the video after the jump, you’ll see that such a scenario is demonstrated (despite being highly unlikely)! So, let’s say you have to get up from the table while having that incredibly important tele-conferencing session and need to make sure your voice is still heard, and preferably, your face still seen.
What do you do?
The answer is simple, apparently. You use Jeppe’s ability to follow you to the sink so you can do those dishes while carrying on that important meeting.
See, Jeppe is a little robot with wheels, a camera and microphone that is controlled by a Nokia Internet tablet. It can follow you around as you talk to the person on the other end. Nokia says that he’s supposed to be a sort of robotic pet allowing families to keep in touch with relatives. However, thanks to a number of free alternatives, like Skype, Gizmo Project and basically any video-enabled instant messaging service, one wonders just who the heck would spend any money on this thing.
As of July 2008, Jeppe’s features are a bit on the limited side. For now, that tablet has to be on the same WLAN as the Jeppe in order to connect to the rolling robot. Obviously, the plan will be to have this work over the Internet in the future.
Also, Jeppe only has one-way video (it has the camera, the user with the tablet can see what Jeppe sees), and two-way audio, hence the tele-conferencing instead of video conferencing. The official website for Jeppe claims that two-way video is coming.
For now, though, you can check out this “amazing” video that demonstrates a kind of product that really doesn’t make any sense. One can’t help but wonder why simply staying seated at the table during a meeting is so difficult. Why anyone would want, let alone need, to have the ability to send their tele-conferencing unit zooming around someone’s office, looking up women’s skirts and knocking over potted plants and–actually, maybe this little guy has a purpose after all!
Jeppe is still in development and there’s no official word on when or even if it will be made available to the public.
By the way, the website doesn’t tell us how “Jeppe” is pronounced so, hopefully, they’ll include that in future versions along with two-way video and the ability to connect over the Internet.
