WASHINGTON: The workspace of the future is a lot more than a typical office cubicle. It may be a coffee shop, the living room, an airport terminal, or anywhere technology can provide connections.

Laptops already allow many people to work remotely, but the trend is gaining momentum with advances such as virtual reality avatars and telepresence robots.

A 2012 survey by software firm Citrix found 90 per cent of US employers allowed “mobile work styles”. And the practice is almost as widespread in China (85 per cent), Brazil (81 per cent), India (77 per cent), Britain (72 per cent), France and Germany (71 per cent each).

The next leap may be the introduction of technologies to allow robots or virtual reality to fill the gap of face-to-face communications.

So-called telepresence robots allow a kind of videoconferencing.

The robots have been satirised on television comedies, but Jay Liew of Double Robotics says companies are warming to them. “We’ve had customers tell us they can’t remember when the person was really there and when the robot was there,” said Liew. “After the initial excitement wears off, it’s not just a robot. It’s John. It’s Connie, from the Seattle office.”

And the person working remotely can get be a part of the “team” by moving around the office, chatting in the break room, or “stopping by” a colleague’s desk to ask a question.

Another technique allows people to interact in a cartoon-like world via their “avatars” — or images they create.

Jeremy Bailenson, director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University, said virtual meetings can in many cases be better than those taking place face-to-face.

Bailenson said virtual reality offers a host of advantages such as reducing commuting fuel costs and road accidents and saving time. He added that Facebook’s $2 billion acquisition of the virtual reality firm Oculus Rift suggests the trend may be accelerating.

Kori Inkpen Quinn, who studies human-computer interaction at Microsoft Research, said her studies suggest colleagues are comfortable with video interaction such as with a telepresence robot but that most are not ready for the cartoonish avatars of virtual reality.

“Even if I’m comfortable looking like a cat, you might not be comfortable having a business meeting with a cat,” she said.

Lindsey Pollak, a workplace consultant for the insurance firm The Hartford, says changes may be driven by younger tech-savvy people coming into the workforce.

“They are digital natives and expect the workplace will be as digital savvy and as flexible as they’ve seen in the consumer market,” she said.—AFP

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2014