the future

in this task we were asked to watch a video and predict how that technology may help us in the future, or to pick one of the other aspects of the lecture and do the same thing with it. i have decided that i would rather look into avatars with real bodies as this concept seems to interest me more, therefore i went on the net and found this quote:
"Researchers are working to associate online avatars with physical bodies, connecting virtual reality robots with steel and software counterparts. The unification of software and mobility like this results in the so-called 'Ubibot' (ubiquitous robot), which the researchers predict is the future of interactive robotics. In the future, avatars on your pc/cell/pda screen may be able to bring you your tea or scratch your back. 'Two key components of the interface involve the sensor mapper and behavior mapper. The sensor mapper helps Rity get physical (ultrasound) sensor information from Mybot, enabling the virtual avatar to use physical information. The behavior mapper helps Rity actually perform physical behaviors using Mybot in a real environment, enabling the avatar to interact physically with human beings in real environments.'"

this was taken off:http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/14/2137227

from this quote it is bovious that if we can manage this we will have alot more relaxed lives, we could use the avatar for any task including:
house hold tasks
shopping
maintenace around the house/garden
delivering messages

however when you think of this on a larger scale this could be used in other ways for example it would be easy to use avatars to have business meetings so people dont have to fly from all over the world.
if an avatar could be pre-porogrammed then it could be used to help handicapped people or to stop people breaking into to a building.

however at the same time i feel this could be a very bad idea, people would get reliant on machines, the health of the country would dramticaly drop as we use avatars to do anything and it would mean very little for people to do.

avatars with a body a good or bad idea? who knows...