Telepresence robots let employees 'beam' into work

PALO ALTO, California (AP) - Engineer Dallas Goecker attends meetings, jokes with colleagues and roams the office building just like other employees at his company in Silicon Valley.

But Goecker isn't in California. He's more than 3,700km away, working at home in Seymour, Indiana.

It's all made possible by the Beam - a mobile video-conferencing machine that he can drive around his company's offices and workshops in Palo Alto. The 1.5m-tall device, topped with a large video screen, gives him a physical presence that makes him and his colleagues feel like he's actually there.

"This gives you that casual interaction that you're used to at work," Mr Goecker said, speaking on a Beam. "I'm sitting in my desk area with everybody else. I'm part of their conversations and their socialising."