Telepresence for the
Teleworkplace:
Living-in versus visiting
Cyberspace…
Making Telepresence a Reality
Gordon Bell
(gbell@microsoft.com)
Bay Area Research Center
Microsoft Research
http://www.research.microsoft.com/barc/gbell
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Outline

Telepresence and Telework
– Teleworking environment
– Overhead: Support & Administrivia
– The “work”
 Telepresence dimensions
 Telepresentations: the 2nd killer app!
 Telecollaboration: killer app to come?
 “The work”
 Is it for everyone?
Telework
“Therapy from long distance
debated”
- SJ Mercury 5 April 1998
http://www.sjmercury.com/breaking/headline1/056580.htm
Telework
What is Telepresence?

Being there without really
being there or then

Injecting
your
presence
into tele-space

Being immersed in the
tele-space
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Telepresence Components







Video
Audio
Slides, images, web
pages
Text chat
Shared applications
Whiteboards
Voting, question taking
Telework
Time-shifting beats Space-shifting

Gets around scheduling
problems
– World’s time zones!

Lets me pause,
rewind, browse, play
at faster speeds

Immortality

Time-shifting requires STORAGE !!!Telework
Today’s killer app : Telepresentations

One-way mostly
– Not meeting or
collaboration settings
– forget the network
latencies and messy
social issues
 Presenter and/or
audience telepresent

Slides and audio get you 99%
and are bandwidth cheap

Practical and low cost now
Telework
Telework = (cyber) work + telepresence
… being there while being here, and at
some other time.

Goal: teleoffice/teleworkplace = workplace office
 The teleworkplace is ideally just a “remote office” W/O
– Communication, computer, and network support!
– Team interactions for work! CSCW is a “rat hole”!
– Interaction at coffee, meeting rooms, … in offices
– Administrative support for phones, information
(especially paper) management, keeping track of
 Always on & always connected to intranet/intranet ...!
 Telecommunication aka phone & email -- the first, “killer
apps”
 Telepresentations -- the 2nd “killer app”
 Tele-collaboration -- the “killer app” to come
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Videotaped Lectures convert to Video
On Demand for Telepresentations
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Telecommuting versus time
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Teleworking CW 9/1/97


15% 2 yr increase, 11 Mpeople, avg. 19 Hr/wk
42% of US Co’s; 22% have policies
(screening, worker expectations, liability, IP
protection, etc.
 Are telecommuters more productive?
– 30% yes
– 50% same
– 4% no
– 16% don’t know
 Are telecommuters more accessible?
– 13% yes
– 40% same
– 40% no
– 7% don’t know
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Living in Cyberspace:
the environment for
telepresence / telework
Telework
SOHO (small office, home office)
network computing environment
POTS
(legacy services)
IP Dial tone (Internet, phone,
videophone) >1.5 Mbps
NT Server for:
comm/network, POTS/IP
gateway, file, print, compute
LAN
PC
Phone
...
PC
Phone
...
NC*
Phone
*NC, NetPC,
Xterm, etc.
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Intrastructure
Telework
Tecra & Libretto Replacement… at 3#
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A Teleworkplace
Telework
A Whiteboard
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SOHO AKA
COMOHO
Teleworking
Environment
or is it?
Guardian Angel:
intercom,
records what we
read, see, and
hear… protects
us from
ourselves and
othersTelework
Libretto,
.5mm
Not shown:
ECG;
PCS; Pilot
GPS;
Compass;
altimeter
Libretto PS,
Ricoh Camera;
Swiss Army
Knife
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Audio, pix, T, P, ECG, location,
physiological parameters…
1 GB
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Conference Rooms with Teleconferencing
Telework
Telework
Telemeeting clone
Telework
Telework
clones…
being in
more
than one
place at
the same
time
Telework
Animatron...
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Telework &
communications dimensions
•Who and how many are interacting?
•What is the nature of the interaction?
•Which professions?
•Mechanisms: How are they interacting?
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Mechanisms
(how)
Synchronous
The Space of
Telepresence
for work
ICQ, Internet phone & phone conf.
RealAudio & simple graphics
Workspace for remote program control
Whiteboard (groups)
...
Videophone
Remote Rover (Robot Videophone)
email
Formal presentations sans video
Asynchronous
...
Voice & Videomail
Video lectures & courses
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Telepresence: who and what
WHO
1:1 person-person
communication
What
view (troll) hallways,
“seeking interaction”
1:1 interview, status report,
etc.
1-6 videophone calls for
1:n-site broadcasting or
(design, problem solving,
Mbone narrowcasting
authoring)
distributed group. >2 - 5 - hold staff meetings with 1 or
more members
10 - 100
distributed
---attend classes
person-computer
formal meetings (lectures,
conferences, stockholder
computer management (no meetings, town halls,
persons)
etc..)
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n:m 2-site-site video
conference
Telepresence Mechanisms (for Work)
Synchronous
Internet phone &
phone conferencing
Internet Videophone
RealAudio &
Overhead graphics
Shared applications
Whiteboards
CU SeeMe on POTS…
IP Videophone
Mbone Video conferencing
Room Video conferencing
Remote Rover
(Robot Videophone)
Asynchronous
voice mail…STT
email ... TTS
Home pages replace
bulletin boards, file
transport, and document
distribution
Schedule & “Notes”
Voice and Video “email”
Telepresentations
(meetings, presentations,
& courses)
Telework
Voice and Visual Alternatives (in
order of increasing B/W)
Voice*
 TTS (synthetic or
speaker driven)
 4 Kb-64 Kb codec
of real voice
 Stereo of real voice
 Stereo with sound
source
identification
 Projection into
arbitrary virtual
world environment
*variable speed
Visual AKA Video*
 Text avatar (simple… photo)
 Avatar with voice sync
 Avatar of real person
 Video codec based projection
– “Postage stamp” … POTS
– “Mailing label” … ISDN or 2x
POTS
– Compressed VHS (200 Kbps)
– MPEG 2 (1- 4 Mbps)
 Speaker tracking, 1-n cameras
 VR image of a large space
 3d images “holodeck”
 Animatron e.g. Barney
 Mobile Animatron
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*Meeting in real or virtual world
Telepresentations: The 2nd killer app?
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Telepresentations
“Being There (e.g. meeting, lecture, confererene)
Without Really Being There (or Then)”




Presenter or audience need not be
physically present
Reach a wider audience
 “I have a schedule conflict.”
 Anybody with a web connection can
participate
Reduce costs
 No need to travel to attend or
participate in a presentation
Education & training, corporate
Telework
communication
Telework
Motivation:
Telepresentations
•
Presenter and/or
audience telepresent
NOT: meeting or
collaboration settings
Forget the nasty social
issues!
Mostly one-way
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Telepresentation
Elements




Slides
Audio
Video
Script,
text comments,
hyperlinks,
etc.
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Telepresentations:
The Essentials



Slide and audio a must
Add some video
(low quality)
to make us feel good
Storage and transmission costs
low
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Telepresentations:
The Killer App

Increased attendance & lower travel costs
 Practical and low-cost NOW
 e.g. ACM97 - 2,000 visitors in real space,
20,000 visitors on Internet
http://research.microsoft.com/acm97
Telework
This talk



Would you like to pause, rewind, browse?
Do you wish you could have seen this
– At home?
– At another time?
How much does a present speaker add? How much would
you pay for real presence?
Telework
Telework
About storage: one CD holds four,
“near VHS quality” hours of video
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Telepresentation Structure
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Telecollaboration: The next
“killer app”
interacting to achieve a common
objective …
basically, its communications
enabling or disabling people
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Tools for telecollaboration







Powerpoint: conference & record,
Precept: mbone multicasting
NetShow: On demand viewing of video
28.8 - 100 Kb
CuSeeMe: audio, video, whiteboard
NetMeeting: audio, 2 way video, chat,
whiteboard, program sharing
Placeware for large scale meetings,
presentations, and collaborations
Latitude MeetingPlace phone & data
conference
Active Touch web-based phoneTelework
& data
conference
Active Touch Live Collaboration
Architecture
Collaboration
Clustering
Server
Data
Data
Data
Collaboration Collaboration Collaboration
Server
Server
Server
CTI
Server
CTI
Server
Telework
Active Touch Data Collaboration Services
Data
Collaboration
Server
Chat
Doc Review
Presentation
Interactive
Forms
Web Tour
Application
Sharing
Application
Viewing
Desktop
Sharing
Launch
NetMeeting
To
CTI
Servers
Conf. Control
Multipoint Comm.
Service
HTTP
TCP/IP
Web Server
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Active Touch Administration and
Enterprise Integration
Admin and EI
Billing &
Directory
Accounting Service Module
Database
Database
Active
Directory
Service
(LDAP)
Object
Storage
Security
Module
Archive
Module
Third
Enterprise
Public
Database
Party
Key
Data
Repository
Repository Infrastructure
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Collaboration Application Server:
Criteria

Robust, scalable
 Data & Telephony Tight Integration
 Web Integration
 Easy-To-Use
 Security
 Open Standards (HTTP, TSAPI, LDAP, T.120, Encryption)
 Enterprise Application Integration
 Performance
 High Availability
 Customizable
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Telecollaboration

Low latency, high bandwidth for
interactivity, feeling, nuances
 Channels:
– speech (including spatialization)
– the “work” I.e. document, diagram,
program, presentation, etc.
– video output: forces attendance and
holds attention
– video input: “state” of the receiver cues
– whiteboard
– chat channels
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Telework: It takes screens,
sound, and bandwidth, stupid
Telework
http://research.microsoft.com/barc/GBell/
“
By April 1, 2001
videophones will ship in
50% of the PCs
and be in use.
”
Gordon Bell vs Jim Gray
1996 (one paper,
loser gets fed)
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How to fail at video-telephony




Have just a few video-telephones…
defy Metcalfe’s Law
Have audio latency
Make calling more difficult and timeconsuming than placing a phone call
Eliminate gaze awareness and eye
contact
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How to fail at videoconferencing




Break the video-telephony rules
Stick with poor mono audio and don’t
provide stereo
Make the images very small so that
users can’t see the other participants
Destroy any sense of spatial
positioning
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Four steps to video-telephony
enabling telemeetings




Very low cost IP telephony becomes
ubiquitous
Evolve audio to provide spatial
awareness aka stereo, quad, etc.
Make recording easy to do
Add multi-party
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Limits of Computer Supported
Collaborative Work -- CSCW







We don’t understand collaboration
We do it for design of chips, software, 777s
“One person has the mouse” problem
Camera is important NOT for comm. channel,
but for signals from attendees (did they “get it”),
and to keep & force attendee attention
Parallel processing and single threading of tasks
Limited parallelism for the job
Brook’s Law matters!
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Attending Several Simultaneous Meetings
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Alternative Computing
Futures
• Metropolis (1926)
• Forbidden Planet (1956)
• 2001 (1968)
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Photos courtesy of Microsoft Cinemania
But does anyone want telework?
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A People Model:
Who wants to telework?
Spock
formal
(in writing)
Analyticals..
being right,
detailed
email
Drivers…
results oriented
broadcast
- push
megalomaniacs
Self-control
anal
retentives
informal
(verbal)
Amiables…
consensus
builders
Expressives...
want
recognition,
need contact
Managing
Interpersonal
Relationships
(MIR)
2D Model
--------------chat---------------Sally Field
spineless
wimps
Souter
psychotics
Evangelism
Swaggert
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Problems: socio vs technical





Isolation & loneliness
– need for communication/stimulation
– chance meetings -- serendipity of ideas
– loss of group/teamwork skills
– danger of becoming “terminal”
interruptions & focus
lack of support staff to help, answer ?s
supervision and ability to have 1:1
unclear that many people want it…
they simply need the contact with people
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Good News





Bandwidth will come
Audio and video compression is
improving to live within POTS limit
Videophones will be built-into all
PCs within 5 years at 0 cost
Telepresentations are here for
“live” and “on demand” use
This will change education!
Telecollaboration tools work for
Telework
simple apps… and will improve
Telepresence: 5, 10, … 50 year goals
hold a meeting of type, m
university or technical course
interview, staff meeting, co-ordination, board
meeting, annual meeting, “town hall”,
with p, distributed persons
with as much interactivity, I, and feeling, f
such that people prefer being telepresent; and
meetings are provably more productive
meetings will evolve to be asynchronous versus
traditional synchronous enabling full timeshifting so that people can be in two places at
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the same time
The End
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Time and Motion Study



Where does all the time go?
Can anything be parallelized?
Is there an app to help?
–

Will the gain be worth the pain?
What is likely to be a fruitless and/or overworked area e.g. tele-collaboration?
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Time and motion of teleworker (me)
context & “doing”
Context
 Doing
 Microsoft
 sleeping, feeding,
 Families
traveling
– Wife
 goofing-off, social
– Friend
interacting, vacationing
– Children &
 supporting infrastructure
grandchildren  administriving
– TCM
 grazing, learning
 GB Corp
 communicating
– Startup
 WORKING?*
– Consultant-atlarge
* building, deciding, interacting, presenting,
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problem-solving, testing, thinking, writing…
Group Structure of Interaction






solo
pair
small productive group of 3-6
group gropes, edutainment, formal
meetings 10-100
whole organization or organizationat-large
world
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Administrivia: paper and phones
Telework
Administrivia, paper and phone
coexistence

With no administrative support, we are our own
administrative assistants, secretaries, and gofers.
 Forms and travel arrangements
 Calendar management
 Paper handling and its database
–
Identification, input, indexing, and interface
– Interface to message management database

Message management database
–

email, voicemail, fax, contacts, calendar
– phone and videophone must be “on line”
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Personal databaseS management are a major time sink
Coexisting with Paper


Paper disappears as transmission & storage media,
but not for portability & screen dump
Goals of “automating” paper:
–
–
No more time-consuming than discarding it
Input, Identify, OCR, Index, save, and retrieve
in every possible context
– Biz cards, fax, reports, brochures, ...photos
– Give things back in context
– Totally eliminate the need for copiers
– Interface: unobtrusive and humane
 Success is measured by elimination of FILING
Cabinets!!
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What paper must we handle?





letters (diminishing, given email)
forms that require signatures, often via fax
clipped articles e.g. graphs, journals, misc. book pages
technical reports that need to be OCR'd with figs
copies of documents e.g. stocks, signature pages, and
licenses. Originals are stored elsewhere.
 small, non-critical document e.g. insurance policies,
receipts, warrantees
 large documents that are OCR’d e.g. contracts.
Original storage may be kept somewhere else.
 scraps of paper e.g. receipts, checks, bills …must be
legal images
 business cards that go into an electronic address book
 photographs and slides. legacy acetate presentations?
 700 page text image requires 50 Mbytes, at a cost of $5.
A 5 GB disk holds 100 books., or 1000 bbif encoded!
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Coexisting with the telephone





Overall integration with the computer
Answering machine, recorder, and transcriber
And database with transcription, keywords, and
voice
“Wildfire” it … finds me
ICQ capability for both computer and phone
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Capturing, storing and retreiving
everything we’ve ever:
heard (said),
seen (presented), and
read (written)
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Memex
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Storing all we’ve read, heard, & seen
Human data-types
read text, few pictures
/hr
200 K
/day (/4yr)
2 -10 M/G
/lifetime
60-300 G
speech text @120wpm
speech @1KBps
43 K
3.6 M
0.5 M/G
40 M/G
15 G
1.2 T
stills w/voice @100KB
200 K
2 M/G
60 G
video-like 50Kb/s POTS
video 200Kb/s VHS-lite
22 M
90 M
.25 G/T
1 G/T
25 T
100 T
video 4.3Mb/s HDTV/DVD 1.8 G
20 G/T
1P
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Storage and data-rate requirements for
common office data-types
Documents
page or fax
business card
snapshot
350 page book
image
100 K
5K
3M
25 M
Human data-types
read text, few pictures
speech text @120wpm
speech @1KBps
Video comp. 50KbPOTS
video comp. 200Kb VHS
video comp. 4.3Mb DVD
compressed
4K
500
100 K
1-2 M
/hr
200 K
43 K
3.6 M
22 M
90 M
1.8 G
/day
2 -10 M
0.5 M
40 M
.25 G
1G
20 G
#/GB
10K;250K
200K;2M
10,000
40;750
/lifetime
60-300 G
15 G
1.2 T
25 T
100 T
1P
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Telepresence for work: requirements

Telepresence = space and time shifting
 Goal: teleoffice/teleworkplace = workplace office
 Limited space, bandwidth, administrative and
computer support infrastructure, AND interaction
 Need: run all office and professional apps, support
computing environment, and be always connected
 New app opportunities: telepresentations (e.g.
NetShow, Powerpoint conferencing);
 Web is the greatest library ever created
 Create “presence” for collaboration by apps sharing
(e.g. NetMeeting, Placeware)
 Administrative support including paper handling!
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 Short term bets: large disks (e.g 20GB), more
displays,
videophones, cameras, scanners, bandwidth limits
Telework & telepresence:
a forcing function into several areas...






Home Network
Network connection is always on
… and at high speed
Support (at reasonable cost) for all apps…
-- the teleworker = system admin
Office work… e.g. paperlessness, message mgm’t
“recording all we read, write, hear, and see”
-- the teleworker = admin. assistant aka secretary
Telepresence… attending meetings and lectures,
taking courses, etc. without travel
Collaboration on a work project without travel
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Why telepresence now?
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It’s the near-term platforms, stupid!
(multimedia is finally happening)

Text & 2D graphics >> images, voice, & video
 The WEB: being anywhere and doing anything
 Disk sizes and cost c1998
– $50-100 / GB
– 4 GB standard; CD-R; and 20-40 GB MO R/W
 The videophone will emerge for distributed conferences
 Document, picture, and video capture and compression
– 10,000 to 250,000 pages / GB; 10,000 pictures / GB
– 40-400 books / GB or $0.25-2.50 / book
– Plethora of … CAMERAS EVERYWHERE!
– More Screens. We need at least two!
 Voice and video compression*
– 250 hours / GB voice
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– Stamp size-VHS: 12-50 hours / GB;
 Audio: Surround sound that is part of V-places
Telework: Summary





The web is the enabler. We still lack B/W.
Technology is coming, research lags in handling
– Storage of all text, audio, and useful video
– Videophones, cameras, netPCs, WebTV, etc.
– More pixels we require to increase “presence”
– Adequate audio… the “killer” component
A big part of telework is just office productivity
– Coexistence with computer, paper, telephone,
– Data-types require a multimedia database
– Computer and network management is a real
“time killer”
CSCW is a rathole. We don’t understand CW
– The killer apps are simple: telepresentations
and shared apps
Being connected all the time is essential
Telework