What a charming article.  It brought a smile to my face at the end of a long day.<p>My team is too decentralized, spread all over the world, for a robot to make sense, but I almost wish this weren&#x27;t the case because it would be so fun.  So many opportunities for jokes, pranks, and as Emily put it, joy.<p>Eventually these devices will need to have mifi or 4G, to get around the wifi dead zone issue though if there&#x27;s no 4G either, you&#x27;re in trouble.  I suppose the robot could be instructed to automatically turn around and retrace its steps until it has signal again.<p>Also, of course, they&#x27;ll need arms.  It would be so useful to point at things on the white board, tap an elevator button, knock on a door, etc.  Operating a heavy door might be a bridge too far, for now.<p>But eventually, we may have a &quot;Surrogate (The Movie)&quot; situation where human lookalikes are wandering around everywhere, and we&#x27;ll be jacked in with 3-D goggles, noise canceling headphones, and smart gloves that provide resistance.<p>This may actually be the Next Big Thing.  Where can we invest?