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Life

How a robot can replace you at work – and how it can't

By Helen Knight

23 March 2011

Âé¶¹´«Ã½. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

At home, yet also at school

(Image: Jim Wilson/The New York Times/Redux/Eyevine)

Telepresence robots are deputising for their human controllers in the workplace, but can they really fit in?

YOU wander around the office, stopping off in the kitchen to chat with colleagues before heading down the hallway to an impromptu design meeting. Afterwards, you head to a colleague’s office to continue the discussion.

It is a fairly typical day at work – except that you are in London, while all the people you have been talking to are in your company’s New York office. You have, in effect, beamed…

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