With the ‘anything goes’ nature of the modern hire industry, we at Anything for Hire are seeing some pretty fabulous ventures unfold across the world. Just this week, we came across the ‘Human Uber’. This is a hire business that uses VR to enhance social experiences. While apps and other technology creations have stunned us, this product cleverly combines high-tech with the arguably unparalleled human being.
Entitled ChameleonMask, the business encourages people to hire individuals to wear a mask. This is no ordinary mask; it features a live stream to you! This means, you can attend events such as parties, concerts and even business meetings from the comfort of your own home. Giving a sort of illusion that you there, it’s basically Skype, but much more complicated!
So, where has this idea come from? As the brainchild of Jun Rekimoto, Deputy Director of Sony Computer Science Laboratories, the ‘human Uber’ has been created to fill in for us at prior engagements.
“To do this a surrogate user wears a mask-shaped display that shows a remote user’s live face. A voice channel transmits a remote user’s voice” he wrote.
Seeing Twitter go into a slight tech frenzy, many users made valid points. Where we have seen robots and droids take a front seat of late, this is the first time someone has married such video technology with a good old-fashioned homosapien. As the intention for the product, Rekimoto continues:
“This design is based on our hypothesis assuming physical and social telepresence can be embodied by such a surrogate human who imitates the remote user”.
“It also eliminates many difficulties of teleoperated robots wandering in the environment. Our pilot study confirmed that people could regard the masked person as [the remote operating] person.”
Initially unveiled at the MIT Technology Review’s EmTech conference in Singapore, an official launch date is yet to be revealed.
Will you be hiring a face?
Let us know what you think about the human Uber. Will you be investing in one? Leave your comments with us.
