I’m normally an optimist. I can believe or imagine that anything in the world can be done given enough time and resources. But in the case of teleportation as we’ve come to know it through the Star Trek television series, it ain’t never gonna to happen. The idea of breaking a person down into individual molecules and then sending them to another location to be perfectly reassembled again presents too many risks to ever be feasible. The remake of “The Fly,” with Jeff Goldblum illustrates just one of the problems that could occur when playing with this level of technology.
That said, I believe there’s a strong business case for building the next best thing… Pseudo teleportation if you will. For the purpose of this blog, we’re going to call this concept a Teleporter. And what it is, is a real-time video travel agency. The idea is to tap into next-generation HD videoconferencing technology being used today by such companies as LifeSize, Cisco, Polycom and Tandberg to allow people to travel anywhere in the world without ever leaving home.
How it works: Human messengers are outfitted with special high definition video helmets (these could be built by innovative electronics companies such as Sony). Wiring from the helmet is attached to a battery-powered video codec box located in the messenger’s backpack. The codec box, which has a wireless Internet connection, takes the live high definition video stream and compresses it in real time to a manageable file size. The device’s wireless Internet connection transmits the compressed video to the Internet, where it is received directly in the viewer’s home. The home “traveler” sees the live video on their living room HDTV.
The great thing about Teleporter is that it’s fully interactive. The human messenger can take direction from the person on the other end. This could be done via a cellular line, or though the Internet using Skype. For example, a person at home can say, “Take a right at the next street… go into that store… pan left…. tilt down…. stop…purchase that… here’s my credit card information…”
Schools could use this for educational purposes (i.e., “Today kids we’re going to see some real Mayan ruins), shoppers could use it to buy gifts for themselves or friends (i.e., hire a Teleporter messenger to attend a big sale that’s happening in another country… buy unique gifts… rare spices from exotic lands) and, of course, virtual tourists could use it to see parts of the world they would never otherwise travel to because they don’t have the money or the time.
How it becomes profitable: The idea for profitability comes from selling franchises (a la McDonald’s model). For example, if I wanted to purchase a franchise in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, I would receive the computer, the software to book trips, the hardware the messengers would wear, training materials and a three mile non-compete radius. In short, anyone in the world who wanted to visit Fisherman’s Wharf through this system would have to go through my shop. Other franchises may be available in other parts of the city, such as North Beach, Chinatown or Union Square.
The next question becomes, “How does the franchisee make money?” He/she will need to hire (or contract out) the messengers. From there, the owner will need to figure out how much to charge each incoming home “traveler” per hour for their trip. Depending on the economic climate in the area, it could range from, say, $20 an hour to more than $75. But that’s not the only way the franchisee can make money. If a traveler chooses to, they can open the call to anyone else who may wish to “tag along.”
The downside to being a “tag along” is that you don’t get any interactivity; you just get to see whatever the leader of the call wants to see. The upside is that it costs a lot less to be a “tag along.” For example it may only cost $5 an hour to tag along a Fisherman’s Wharf trip, whereas the leader is playing $75 an hour.
The money from the “tag alongs” go to the franchisee, and, depending on how many “tag alongs” are on a particular call, it could lower the call leader’s hourly rate. For example, If I am a call leader for Fisherman’s Wharf, I know going into the call it’s going to cost me $75 an hour. However, if I have 25 tagalongs from around the world, it could decrease my hourly rate to, say, $50 an hour (a major incentive for everyone to keep their calls open).
If everyone in the world started teleporting to other places in the world and buying stuff, it could transform our global economy. 3rd world countries that aren’t on most people’s “must visit” list, could gain by selling goods to a new breed of “virtual” tourist. Likewise, 3rd world citizens who would never be able to afford a trip anywhere outside of their country, could use a Teleporter to cheaply visit any other city in the world.
When explaining this idea to friends, I use the example of Bolivia. It’s a place I will probably never see before I die, but there’s still something there that intrigues me about it. I would pay $75 an hour to get a three-hour interactive tour of the country’s capital. And while I’m there, I’d probably buy something (a keepsake from my trip—maybe something weird for my brother… who know what you’ll find when you begin exploring with your messenger).
I don’t believe one company by itself could make Teleporter a reality. It will require teamwork from a number of industry technology leaders. For example, Sony could design the helmet camera, Intel or AMD processors could power the codec box, LynuxWorks could be the real time operating system, Cisco could develop and deploy the infrastructure that would need to be in place in all of the major cities in the world, Google could be the search engine that enables people to search for trips that are currently open to “tag alongs,” and Oracle could design the franchise/reservation booking infrastructure software. The great thing about this idea is that it’s totally doable using technology that’s currently available to us today.
Anyway, that’s pretty much the idea in a nutshell. Let me know what y’all think by posting a comment below and sharing the link to this blog posting with all of your friends. Would love to talk about it and share it with the world. If you are one of the companies, mentioned in this article and would like to learn more about this idea, feel free to contact me directly through this blog.
That said, I believe there’s a strong business case for building the next best thing… Pseudo teleportation if you will. For the purpose of this blog, we’re going to call this concept a Teleporter. And what it is, is a real-time video travel agency. The idea is to tap into next-generation HD videoconferencing technology being used today by such companies as LifeSize, Cisco, Polycom and Tandberg to allow people to travel anywhere in the world without ever leaving home.
How it works: Human messengers are outfitted with special high definition video helmets (these could be built by innovative electronics companies such as Sony). Wiring from the helmet is attached to a battery-powered video codec box located in the messenger’s backpack. The codec box, which has a wireless Internet connection, takes the live high definition video stream and compresses it in real time to a manageable file size. The device’s wireless Internet connection transmits the compressed video to the Internet, where it is received directly in the viewer’s home. The home “traveler” sees the live video on their living room HDTV.
The great thing about Teleporter is that it’s fully interactive. The human messenger can take direction from the person on the other end. This could be done via a cellular line, or though the Internet using Skype. For example, a person at home can say, “Take a right at the next street… go into that store… pan left…. tilt down…. stop…purchase that… here’s my credit card information…”
Schools could use this for educational purposes (i.e., “Today kids we’re going to see some real Mayan ruins), shoppers could use it to buy gifts for themselves or friends (i.e., hire a Teleporter messenger to attend a big sale that’s happening in another country… buy unique gifts… rare spices from exotic lands) and, of course, virtual tourists could use it to see parts of the world they would never otherwise travel to because they don’t have the money or the time.
How it becomes profitable: The idea for profitability comes from selling franchises (a la McDonald’s model). For example, if I wanted to purchase a franchise in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, I would receive the computer, the software to book trips, the hardware the messengers would wear, training materials and a three mile non-compete radius. In short, anyone in the world who wanted to visit Fisherman’s Wharf through this system would have to go through my shop. Other franchises may be available in other parts of the city, such as North Beach, Chinatown or Union Square.
The next question becomes, “How does the franchisee make money?” He/she will need to hire (or contract out) the messengers. From there, the owner will need to figure out how much to charge each incoming home “traveler” per hour for their trip. Depending on the economic climate in the area, it could range from, say, $20 an hour to more than $75. But that’s not the only way the franchisee can make money. If a traveler chooses to, they can open the call to anyone else who may wish to “tag along.”
The downside to being a “tag along” is that you don’t get any interactivity; you just get to see whatever the leader of the call wants to see. The upside is that it costs a lot less to be a “tag along.” For example it may only cost $5 an hour to tag along a Fisherman’s Wharf trip, whereas the leader is playing $75 an hour.
The money from the “tag alongs” go to the franchisee, and, depending on how many “tag alongs” are on a particular call, it could lower the call leader’s hourly rate. For example, If I am a call leader for Fisherman’s Wharf, I know going into the call it’s going to cost me $75 an hour. However, if I have 25 tagalongs from around the world, it could decrease my hourly rate to, say, $50 an hour (a major incentive for everyone to keep their calls open).
If everyone in the world started teleporting to other places in the world and buying stuff, it could transform our global economy. 3rd world countries that aren’t on most people’s “must visit” list, could gain by selling goods to a new breed of “virtual” tourist. Likewise, 3rd world citizens who would never be able to afford a trip anywhere outside of their country, could use a Teleporter to cheaply visit any other city in the world.
When explaining this idea to friends, I use the example of Bolivia. It’s a place I will probably never see before I die, but there’s still something there that intrigues me about it. I would pay $75 an hour to get a three-hour interactive tour of the country’s capital. And while I’m there, I’d probably buy something (a keepsake from my trip—maybe something weird for my brother… who know what you’ll find when you begin exploring with your messenger).
I don’t believe one company by itself could make Teleporter a reality. It will require teamwork from a number of industry technology leaders. For example, Sony could design the helmet camera, Intel or AMD processors could power the codec box, LynuxWorks could be the real time operating system, Cisco could develop and deploy the infrastructure that would need to be in place in all of the major cities in the world, Google could be the search engine that enables people to search for trips that are currently open to “tag alongs,” and Oracle could design the franchise/reservation booking infrastructure software. The great thing about this idea is that it’s totally doable using technology that’s currently available to us today.
Anyway, that’s pretty much the idea in a nutshell. Let me know what y’all think by posting a comment below and sharing the link to this blog posting with all of your friends. Would love to talk about it and share it with the world. If you are one of the companies, mentioned in this article and would like to learn more about this idea, feel free to contact me directly through this blog.
Nice idea. I think you need a fast-forward function though. Otherwise people will probably think that $75/hr is a little stiff. You can do this by a complete "video coverage" of the area beforehand. Store the footage with GPS coordinates in a terabyte storage. Then people can basically joystick their way around. When you get to a store, you connect to the online storefront. Pretty cool!
ReplyDeleteThat’s an interesting idea. Something that would essentially be free. You don’t even need to scan the area with video, you could do it with photographs the way Google started to photograph all of the streets in all of the major cities in the country. It would be a nice way to case a city before hand and map out the route you want to take when you’re ready for your “live” trip.
ReplyDeleteI agree that $75 might be a little steep for some people, but that number would probably start to go way down as more people started using the service. Also, the service would be way cheaper in some of the 3rd world countries, where hourly wages are still fairly low.