Technologies

Logitech’s Telepresence Video Booth Aims for Your Next Office

The life-size video projections hide cameras behind the screens to make for better eye contact.

The world’s gone hybrid now. Many people work from home, and video meetings are office fixtures. What’s the value of coming into an office? Companies are still trying to figure this out, and so are manufacturers of office furniture. Logitech’s collaboration with Steelcase, called Project Ghost, is an office telepresence booth that’s designed to feel like remote meetings are really happening in person, instead of on a laptop or TV screen.

No one’s wearing VR or AR glasses around any normal office; we’re all in video chats to connect. That’s sparked some companies like Google to explore advanced 3D video booths like Project Starline that promise life-size, eye-to-eye conversations with people at a distance. My demo of Project Starline last year was astonishing, but not something that can be set up in any normal office easily. Logitech’s Project Ghost is a similar idea but designed to be easier to set up at a lower cost, without the glasses-free 3D part and at what will likely be a lower budget.

Ghost’s technology is meant to be pretty simple: It uses a mirror to project the video chat over a hidden webcam, so the camera is disguised and actual eye contact ends up feeling real. The screen also shows the person you’re chatting with at full scale. Project Ghost nestles the display into a wall unit, with a lounge seat and a semi-walled booth around it. According to Logitech and Steelcase’s designers on Project Ghost, it’s meant to feel as comfortable as being at home.

I haven’t tried out Ghost yet (Logitech is setting up demos in New York in the spring; for now it’s showing off this concept at a Barcelona trade show), but it sounds very much like the same proposition as Project Starline: that eye contact makes for meaningful conversations, that life-size video chats end up being remembered as more real. I don’t know how this would actually impact meetings or virtual connections at an office, but my one Starline demo did feel a lot different than a normal video chat.

Logitech’s ambitions for Project Ghost don’t just stop at offices, though. Much like Starline, the hope is that these booths could be used in places where an in-person employee could be replaced by a video-streamed replacement.

The furniture designed as part of Project Ghost is supposed to be available for interested companies by the end of the year, but the office video-conferencing tech it uses is already available. The reflective embedded mirror display with hidden camera — which is the same «Pepper’s Ghost» illusion that’s been in stage magic and theme park attractions for decades — is the one new wrinkle here.

Will it be enough to make a more inviting environment for virtual chats than what’s already on your laptop or phone? Unclear. But Logitech’s bigger angle here is seeing whether offices and corporations can find ways to make their own unevolved, prepandemic office constructs feel more appealing to a world that’s very different now.

It’s a project more than an absolute product at the moment, and Logitech is looking for feedback — mine is that, while I think comfy life-size video chats could be surprisingly relaxing and even lifelike, I don’t think they’d be enough to convince me to come into an office that was using them. In that sense, maybe I’d be the one beaming in from the other side.

Technologies

Tesla Has a New Range of Affordable Electric Cars: How Much They Cost

The new, stripped-back versions of the Model Y and Model 3 have a more affordable starting price.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 22 #598

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Oct. 22, No. 598.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a fun one — I definitely have at least two of these in my house. Some of the answers are a bit tough to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Catch all.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: A mess of items.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

BATE, LICE, SLUM, CAPE, HOLE, CARE, BARE, THEN, SLAM, SAMBA, BACK

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

TAPE, COIN, PENCIL, BATTERY, SHOELACE, THUMBTACK

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is JUNKDRAWER. To find it, look for the J that’s five letters down on the far-left row, and wind down, over and then up.

Quick tips for Strands

#1: To get more clue words, see if you can tweak the words you’ve already found, by adding an «S» or other variants. And if you find a word like WILL, see if other letters are close enough to help you make SILL, or BILL.

#2: Once you get one theme word, look at the puzzle to see if you can spot other related words.

#3: If you’ve been given the letters for a theme word, but can’t figure it out, guess three more clue words, and the puzzle will light up each letter in order, revealing the word.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Oct. 22, #1586

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Oct. 22, No. 1,586.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle features some letters I don’t often guess, but it’s not terribly difficult. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has one repeated letter.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has one vowel.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with S.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with T.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to an action displaying spectacular skill and daring.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is STUNT.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Oct. 21, No. 1,585 was DETOX.

Recent Wordle answers

Oct. 17, No. 1,581: GROSS
Oct. 18, No. 1,582: HAVEN
Oct. 19, No. 1,583: IDEAL
Oct. 20, No. 1,584: LIMBO

Quick tips for Wordle

#1: Check our list ranking the popularity of all the letters in the alphabet and choose your starter words accordingly. (TRAIN, STERN and AUDIO are good.)

#2: Don’t forget that letters can be used more than once.

#3: Many words are similar. You don’t want to use up multiple guesses that don’t advance your cause. So if the puzzle is STA_E, don’t guess STARE, STATE and STALE. Guess something that uses that R, T and L, like TWIRL.