Startups with money to burn could buy one of those remote robots for telepresence :) like the Anybots QB http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial

Startups with money to burn could buy one of those remote robots for telepresence :) like the Anybots QB http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/051810-anybots-qb-new-telepresence-robot http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robot... or the texai http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-software/052710-how-i-became-a-texai-robot-and-went-partying http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-softwar... Maybe one day this will become commonplace (when they become an order of magnitude cheaper, I suspect). Meanwhile, Skype is a good idea.