Telepresence: Understanding People as Content

BT is a leading international supplier of telepresence in the form of telephony. Tele-presence enables “people as content”, and there are rapidly developing and wide-ranging opportunities for broadband, mobile, multimedia telepresence services. This paper outlines work in progress at BT Adastral Park, including projects on large-scale inhabited applications, networked immersion or “through-the-screen” conferencing, and wearable computing for ubiquitous telepresence. We conclude that research into future services requires a reappraisal of traditional methods, with an emphasis on multidisciplinary collaboration.