Wehead
Imagine four phone displays duct taped together to roughly create the shape of a human head. Then put that configuration on a two-axis motor to let it swivel around, and you’d have something close to the Wehead. The motorized avatar is made to allow people communicating remotely to have more of a “physical presence” in a meeting. It certainly does that. If I had this thing sitting on a table during our weekly editorial meeting, I probably couldn’t stop staring.
The device is supposed to track the users’ head movements via the connected app, though the demo the developers showed made it seem like it struggled to keep the face squarely on the users’ eyes. That could be because of poor connection, but it was noticable.
But beyond any kinks that can be ironed out later, it’s such a strange piece of technology, it makes remote meetings even more awkward for everyone involved. – Kyle Barr
