When you read the title of this blog post you’re thinking of something quite comedic. At least we did anyway when we first heard about this. We had visions of you calling a ‘Human Uber’ and someone would come along and give you a piggyback to your destination. But the Human Uber is not that. It’s something else. Something A LOT better.

The Human Uber is the nickname to a tech from Japanese researcher Jun Rekimoto. Called ChameleonMask and is kind of like a mobile facetime. According to the official website of ChameleonMask the tech is deemed as a piece of tech that “uses a real human as a surrogate for another remote user” by giving a surrogate a “mask-shaped display that show’s a remote users live face anda  voice channel which transmits a remote users voice” so a video call basically. Jun Rekimoto has described his invention as being “surprisingly natural”. Which is surprising considering what it looks like:

 

Human Uber: Uses

One of the uses of this tech is designed to help out your lazy friends. For example, you could help your friend move out. Or you could use the ChameleonMask and use someone else to do the work for you. While you’re actually doing it as it’s your face on another person’s body. Right?

What’s quite alarming is how is a surrogate going to see where they are walking? The tablet device is literally right in front of their face. So doing a bunch of work for someone is going to either take a lot of co-ordination with your surrogate. Or there’s going to be some sort of glasses that will help your surrogate actually see.

 

 

We’re struggling to see how this is going to work, or if it is even necessary, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

Would you use this platform if it ever came to fruition? Would you be the mask or the maskee? Let us know via our social media channels. Our handle is @howtokillanhour across all platforms!

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

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