Researchers in Japan have developed a fascinating product for people who never want to leave their house again.

The ChameleonMask, also known as a “Human Uber,” aims to provide users with “surrogate* people” who can go to events in their place.

For it to work, surrogates strap a touchscreen to their face, which the creators refer to as a “mask,” that shows the real user’s face on the display. Remote users can then attend events from their couch, bed, toilet or wherever they choose.

Jun Rekimoto, a futurist* and AR*/VR* researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratories, unveiled the “Human Uber” at MIT Tech Review’s EmTech event in Singapore last week.

Not only does the surrogate wear the user’s face on a screen, but the surrogate is also supposed to imitate the person’s gestures using their limbs.

Remote users, or “directors,” can communicate with their surrogate via a private line, where they can give them instructions directly, such as where to look, point, wave, etc. The private line is supported by Google Hangouts’ audio chat feature, according to the researchers.

The surrogate has to mute the private line to communicate on the public line, which is the channel that lets the user talk to people remotely. According to Rekimoto, people seem to think the technology is pretty believable. “Our pilot study confirmed that people could regard the masked person as a right person,” said Rekimoto.(SD-Agencies)