The Bedford robot maker iRobot Corp. will launch its latest product on Monday: a 5-foot, 5-inch autonomous machine with a video monitor that will allow executives to remotely beam themselves into an office or to a factory floor from just about anywhere and interact with employees in real time.
The Ava 500, which iRobot will unveil at the InfoComm technology conference in Florida, is a so-called telepresence robot that has a 21.5-inch screen for a “head” a bit like Skype on a rolling pedestal.
The person controlling Ava from a remote location can communicate directly over the screen, interacting with people at their offices, in meetings, even in the hallway.
And if iRobot and other robot makers are successful at selling these kinds of office machines, workers could soon be taking orders from a new kind of one-dimensional robot boss.
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