In late 2013, Clay Bavor began experimenting with teleportation. He paired an Oculus Rift headset to a robotic arm, upon which he mounted a couple of GoPro cameras. When he moved his head, the thinking went, the cameras would mimic the movement, acting as a second pair of eyes. If it worked, he’d be able to “teleport” himself (or his eyes, at least) a few feet away. He still has a video of the first time he ever got it running: There’s Bavor, tall and thin in a t-shirt and jeans, standing among the contraptions with the Rift on his face. He reaches out his arm, waving his hand in front of the cameras at his side while simultaneously seeing it in front of his face. “Whoaaa,” he says to himself. “This is crazy. This is like the craziest thing I’ve ever experienced.”
The so-called Teleportation Robot was just one of Bavor’s many side hustles at Google. Technically, his job was to lead the company’s apps teams—the folks who make Gmail and Drive and Docs. But he’d been enthralled by VR ever since he first tried the Rift, and so for about a month, he spent his 20-percent time (that window Google famously gives employees to explore outlandish new ideas) playing with ways to enable sustained eye contact on a video chat. He started with reflecting mirrors, 4K TVs, and teleprompter rigs, but his ambitions quickly leaped another several levels. Forget eye contact, he thought. It should feel like you’re there. He built the Teleportation Robot, and started subjecting colleagues to robot-enhanced meetings. He’d bring the Rift and a Mac with him everywhere, giving demos to anyone and everyone. Bavor developed a reputation as Google’s VR guy long before Google had a job opening for “VR guy.” Now virtual reality is his full-time job.
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