Internet Teleportation

The New Scientist [PDF] reported back in June, a story of two computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University, working on a project to "teleport" a person across the internet. The "teleportation" isn't real -- what they are working on is to physically recreate appearance of an object, complete with motion that is being captured of the original object. They envision being able to have virtual meetings with people over great distances using these physical representations of people who are not physically at the same location. Think of it as video conferencing taken to another level. Instead of your face on screen, your entire body will be created, on the fly, mimicking you as you move and talk. They would employ self-assembling smart-nano-particles for the replica.

There are many real world applications for such a system beyond the mundane video conferencing. Think of dangerous work; telemedicine; or even warfare. However, I think the application that would really make such a technology take off, is the porn industry. If you don't get it, you don't have much of an imagination.