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REAL LIFE NEWS: ABSENTEE BOSS USES ROBOT TO KEEP AN EYE ON STAFF

by Hazed

Working from home sounds great, but what if you're a boss? How can you check up on what your employees are doing if you aren't actually in the office?

Richard Garriott, the boss of a games development company in Austin, Texas, has come up with the solution: a robot. He uses a telepresence bot to keep a cyber eye on what's happening in his absence.

For the last few months, he's been using a robot on wheels, that moves around the workplace and lets him communicate directly with the people who work for him.

He originally bought the robot as a means of communicating with his elderly mother, who lives in Las Vegas, while he was in Paris getting married. It cost him $15,000 so naturally he was keen to get more use out of it, and he realized that it would allow him to spend time with his wife in New York, while still showing up for work in Texas.

The robot has a screen on its head that shows his image, presumably from a webcam at his home. His minions don't have any problems communicating with him in this way - although they joke about the robot not understanding personal space!

You can see a picture of the cyberboss robot here.

Footnote:
Richard Garriot's alter ego is Lord British, a character in the Ultima series of computer games which he designed and programmed. The two Ultima Underworld games are, in my opinion, the best single-player games ever written. He's also been a space tourist, and owns a lunar lander and rover. A fascinating character! Read more about him here.

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