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You may have recently seen telepresence robots played for laughs on The Big Bang Theory, but they do also have quite a few practical purposes, and high school student Lyndon Baty from Knox City, Texas is now using one to particularly great effect.

He has a weakened immune system that prevents him from actually attending school, so he’s using a remotely-controlled Vgo telepresence “robot” that allows him to move from class to class and interact with teachers and other students using nothing more than his laptop and webcam at home.

The bot itself is four-feet tall, self-balancing, and simply packs a basic video conferencing system up top that allows its operator to interact with their surroundings — at $5,000, it’s also considerably cheaper than some other similar options.

As Popular Science notes, however, this isn’t the first time that a telepresence bot has gone to school — a student in Russia suffering from leukemia has also been using a similar bot since September of last year as part of a pilot project from the robot’s designers.


ACU dishing out iPhone / iPod touch to all incoming freshmen

Never heard of Abilene Christian University? We’re guessing a wide majority of the general public hasn’t either, but the institution is definitely getting its name out there by promising each incoming freshman this fall an iPhone or iPod touch.

Granted, these aren’t being explicitly marked as “free,” but similar to Duke’s efforts in years past, ACU plans on using these devices for educational enrichment.

Reportedly, the handhelds will enable students to “receive homework alerts, answer in-class surveys and quizzes, get directions to their professors’ offices, and check their meal and account balances” — and that’s just for starters. Read the rest of this entry »







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