Chatbots: could they replace human agents for business travel?

In the year that Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey turns 50, you could be forgiven for asking where is the space-age future we were promised? Many still choose to travel to meetings in favour of using videophones and we don't have a permanent colony on the Moon, let alone Jupiter. Teleconferencing technology is improving though as just a few weeks ago Canadian researchers unveiled the TeleHuman 2, a 3D holographic projection system that smacks of the Star Trek holodeck. The system is based on a ring of intelligent projectors mounted above and around a reflective, human-sized cylindrical pod. The display projects a light field composed of many images, one for every degree of angle, so users need not wear a headset or 3D glasses to see each other.