In what appears to be a world first, Orange and French robot-builder Robosoft announced yesterday that they are working together to allow people visiting the Chateau de Versailles without leaving their own home.

Starting from June, subscribers to the Orange fiber service will be able to drive a mobile robot from their PC, and see what the robot sees. They will also get audio comments on a painting when the robot is in front of it. The robot will allow people to virtually visit rooms of the Chateau that are actually closed to the public (video here).

A really cool application of robotics, although I’m not sure it’s really “scalable”.