How fiction informed the development of telepresence and teleoperation an historical perspective

Abstract

This paper shows that many telepresence and teleoperation innovations and patents actually had their precursors in fiction and that this led the way for technological developments. This suggests justification for those companies that have invested, or are considering investing, in funding science fiction writers to provide future scenarios for their respective products and industries. The research leading to this conclusion has involved a search of patents, technical and scientific publications, and fictional works. The paper is mainly concerned with telepresence and teleoperation but aspects of virtual reality are included where the technological and literary concepts are relevant. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.