Now here’s a great idea for the lazy business man or for the workaholic quarantined at home (It works both ways). The Texas Robot. This apparently simple rigged robot with wheels was designed and built by Willow Garage based out of California. Their idea was to make it convenient for those in one office to easily interact with those in other offices. The Texas Robot is a simple device albeit a wee bit crude looking. It comprises of a display, computer, webcam, speaker, Wi-Fi router and a battery pack. The designers claim that the battery can go a whole day without having to recharge. Should it require charging though, the robot is designed to autonomously dock to juice-up. The user’s simply control the robots movements via remote from his station (wherever that may be). The best part is this could negate the need to actually come to office altogether. That’s’ what I’m looking forward to. It's still a bit of a mystery as to whether or not the robots will be commercialized but I can hope can't I?

[Cnet]