Geeks design telecommuting robot

In this day and age, there are relatively few tasks that you perform in the office every day that you can't accomplish from home. Thanks to email, you can stay in the loop wherever you are; thanks to high-speed Internet, you can work on projects in real-time; and thanks to instant messaging, you can get in touch with co-workers instantly if something comes up. Just about the only things that you can't do are saunter around the office, physically attend meetings and hang out in the cubicles of your co-workers.

One enterprising geek, however, wasn't content to simply telecommute. When Sybase iAnywhere programmer Ivan Bowman moved from Waterloo, Ontario (home of iAnywhere headquarters) to Halifax, Nova Scotia--over 800 miles away--he left something behind: IvanAnywhere, a robot that simulates Ivan's presence in the office. Consisting of a webcam, a touchscreen and a pair of speakers on wheels, IvanAnywhere wanders the halls of iAnywhere's offices in Waterloo while the real Ivan controls its movements from his living room in Halifax. Thanks to IvanAnywhere, Bowman can attend meetings, read whiteboards, visit offices and even hang out in the break room. "We are all so used to Ivan, they don't even give it a second thought," says Glenn Paulley, Bowman's boss and the man responsible for the idea behind IvanAnywhere.

To learn more about IvanAnywhere:
- see this article from the Record