Someone has created 'Human Uber' which means you can attend events without leaving your sofa

Hold the front page. 'Human Uber' exists, and it is a real thing that is on the planet. Yes, you read that correctly.

Have you ever been curled up on the sofa, six episodes deep into your favourite Netflix series, but you know that you've sent a text to your friend saying you'll 'definitely' be at their birthday, which starts in ten minutes, and it's three bus rides, two plane journeys, and a horse and cart trip away?

Well, fear not, because now, you can be there - without having to apply a scrap of make up, or put on a stitch of clothing, or even leaving your sofa.

We'd like to introduce you to 'Human Uber', which is basically a person who will stand in for you at social events or meetings that you can't actually make it to, with an iPad livestreaming your face strapped to theirs, that does all the talking for you.

This is literally the answer to our slothful prayers!

The new idea was launched at the MIT Tech Review's EM conference in Asia earlier this year. Its creators, Jun Rekimoto and Kana Misawa, who are specialists in augmented reality, and virtual reality affiliated with Sony, have called the idea 'Chameleon Mask'.

Writing on the project's website, they elaborated on their idea:

By wearing the mask, we can be someone else and also someone can be our surrogates.

The remote user can not only communicate with people who are not in the same place but also communicate physically by making direction such as body gesture with surrogate's limbs. [sic] 

They continued:

The idea is very simple that the remote user borrows the someone's body and replace the face to show his presence.

However, how do people judge the person in front of them as " the right person"?

Can we judge if the surrogate with similar height, physical size, and dress the same way as the remote user?

We conducted the feasibility test of the concept.

Surrogate wore the mask and went to the city hall to take a resident card, or became a grandchild and met with her grandmother.

As a result, people tended to regard a person who had masked the as "the right person".

How do we judge a person as "the right person"? [sic] 

They also got pretty deep with the whole thing, and got interested in the ramifications the project will have for the 'duality of man' - or, the mind body dichotomy.

This project is also an attempt to ask what human persona is by separating the face and body of a person.

Hummm, that's really got us thinking...

All in all, however, we're really stoked about the possibility of attending events without actually having to move.

Move over FaceTime - hello Human Uber.

Is there an app for it yet?

HT Unilad

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