A Freaky Idea for Remote-Controlled Sightseeing With Human Avatars

Think of all the ways you can now experience Barcelona from your couch. You can read about it at length on Wikipedia and peruse snapshots of the Sagrada Familia on Flickr. You can order delivery from the tapas place down the street and enjoy your meal while watching Vicky Cristina Barcelona on demand.

About the only thing you cant do is have the embodied experience of actually walking through the city, deciding which streets to explore, which performer to listen to, which bar to duck into. If a handful of Spaniards has their way, though, youll soon be doing all that from your couch, too.

Omnipresenz is your chance to explore the world with a human avatar. The project, under development by researchers in Spain, works much as youd expect. Someone in a distant city wears a helmet with a GoPro and an internet connection. You, at your computer, use a proprietary interface to dictate where they go and what they do in real time. Their eyes, their ears and, most importantly, their agency become yours.

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A Freaky Idea for Remote-Controlled Sightseeing With Human Avatars