It's a sad, sad day for telepresence. iRobot's ConnectR, the Roomba with a webcam on top, has been given the knife, deemed "not yet practical enough" for all you oh-so practical consumers out there. The device, which pledged to let you call home and explore your abode like some domesticated rover, stood poised to open new avenues for the confusion of cats and other small pets. Perhaps $500 was a bit too steep for the beta group, or maybe users spending that much wanted something that looked a little less like a sentient vacuum, but, regardless of the reason, we're not expecting anything like this to hit retail until we pull ourselves out of these economic doldrums.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

When robot builders try to put a human face on their creations, the results usually range between mildly creepy and downright disturbing. Sparky, the Self Portrait Artifact Roving Chassis, dodges that problem entirely by displaying the face of a real, live person on an Erector- and bungee-mounted LCD, creating a package that's far more charming than iRobot's ConnectR. Based on a Mac mini, the bot uses Skype for the video and chat, with a plugin enabling the disembodied head to steer the thing about the room, tossing out Max Headroom quotes all the while. A short vid below gives the basics of how to bolt one of these together, while full instructions are at the read link. We just wish they could teach us how to build ourselves a charming smile like that.

No matter how much we do it, video conferencing is still one of the most awkward internet-related tasks we undertake on a regular basis. Nokia hopes to bring a more casual air to the event with its Jeppe video conferencing robot pet concept. Similar to most telepresence bots, Jeppe can be controlled remotely -- through a Nokia interface, conveniently -- and zips through the home with its digital compass and sound sensors seeking humans to bother. Unfortunately, the video is at a fixed angle and there's no option wipe that creepy grin of its face, but obviously Nokia has some refining to do before it brings Jeppe to market, if ever. There's video after the break of a couple Finnish engineers proving once and for all that there's no solving the awkward video conferencing problem.

[Via Core77]

Although we've got a special place in our hearts for Cisco's 1080p-lovin' TelePresence Meeting system, HP's own Halo Collaboration Center ain't too shabby. Announced today as the newest member of its expanding Halo platform, the aforementioned center comes in two- and four-seat iterations and prides itself on being simple to install in a plethora of locations. Additionally, each unit is designed to "operate seamlessly with existing Halo products," and just in case you were hoping to have work follow you all the way back to the hotel, HP also announced that it's teaming up with Marriott International to install Halo Meeting Rooms in select facilities. Now, figure out how to actually get a Halo 3 deathmatch going on these things and their value increases astronomically.

Read - HP Introduces New Halo Telepresence Product, Marquee Customer Wins
Read - HP and Marriott International Form Alliance to Open "Public Access" Halo Telepresence Rooms

The corporate videoconferencing market has taken some baby steps towards HD resolutions, but a company called LifeSize is trying to jump the rest of the pack with an array of 720p devices that sell for much lower prices than anything else we've seen. The company's basic solution, the $5,999 LifeSize Express, comes with a microphone, remote, and 720p camera, and features HDMI input and output to pipe additional content over a 1.5mbps connection. Stepping up, the LifeSize Team MP and LifeSize Room add support for more than two participants, with the $8,999 Team MP supporting 4-point single camera communications over a 2.5mbps connection and the Room bumping the specs to 6 points with two cameras and two screens each over 5mbps. Linking two MPs and a Room together in what LifeSize bundles as a turnkey telepresence solution will set you back around $40K, which sounds steep until you compare it to competing $200K SD-res systems on the market. All these are shipping now, according to the company.

[Via ZDNet, thanks James]

iRobot's mission to create the "robot home" got a whole lot more fleshed out this afternoon at the company's DigitalLife keynote. The general idea is to get usable tech into any and every home -- not just for the nerds, not like the Jetsons. "A little boring, but fantastically useful robots." Obviously iRobot has been attempting this a while with its Roomba and related lines, but the new ConnectR and Looj bots really flesh out that vision. On the boring end of things, the Looj is a remote-controlled bot that can clean up to 60 feet of gutter in 10 minutes. It rolls through your gutter tank-style and spits out the debris, and then rolls back to you. It's waterproof for easy cleaning, and is available today for $99. The ConnectR takes a whole new angle for iRobot, offering telepresence instead of the usual drudgery removal. You can "virtually visit" friends and family by controlling the WiFi-connected bot remotely, with live video, audio, controls and sensor data. The camera tilts and zooms, and has a zoom mode high resolution enough for reading text. You can transmit your voice through the bot, and control an LED light to convey mood. ConnectR launches next year for $499, and will be available in a pilot program for $199 to select beta-testing users.

We weren't exactly enthralled with Polycom's other all-in-one video conferencing machine, but a lot can change in three years. The newly revamped iteration, dubbed the HDX 4000, claims to be the "first executive desktop video system with HD voice, video, and content sharing." Designed to play nice with most standards-based, IP video conferencing systems, this unit sports a 20-inch widescreen display, built-in HD camera with pan-tilt-zoom capability, dual HDX microphones, speakers and subwoofer, an HDX video conferencing codec, and a stand with an integrated keypad that "allows users to dial or answer video calls just like a telephone." Depending on bandwidth, this system enables you to watch and send 720p content at 30fps (or 480p if you snag the HDX 4001), and while you aren't likely to justify this purchase for your home, $7,999 isn't a whole lot to ask when sprucing up the corporate boardroom.

[Image courtesy of TechFest]

Just because meetings are boring doesn't mean they have to be low-res as well. Cisco's new TelePresence Meeting technology brings utter pixel overkill to the videoconferencing game with the new TelePresence 3000, which sports three 1080p flat panels on each end for use by up to 12 suits at a time. There's also a "low-end" TelePresence 1000 version, which just uses a single 1080p set on each end. The TelePresence 3000 setup includes special tables, microphone-speakers, cameras and lighting, but it'll cost you a cool $299k when it's released this December. Apparently that's a real bargain compared to HP's "Halo" setup, which is closing in on half a mil and requires $18k a month for service (Sony has 'em both beat with their $42k IPELA system), but it's still abundantly clear that TelePresence won't be making it into all but the ritziest board rooms. Luckily, that TP 1000 goes for a mere $79k, and neither system requires a monthly service fee -- though the 10 gigabit per second minimum bandwidth required is probably going to cost you $3-5k monthly per connected room. Still, all of this TelePresence action from Cisco is a sign of things to come, since the networking behemoth is slowly moving into the media and consumer spaces. They've got their sights set on consumer set-top boxes, so grandma can get her TelePresence on, and expect the videoconferencing industry to generate $1 billion in annual revenue before 2011. We're a bit skeptical, but with prices like these, at least they won't need to ship many widgets to hit that target.

[Thanks, J]