The purpose of the Hooverproject is to provide users an opportunity to view and assimilate the multi-cultural establishments of private residences over the internet. The Hoover Project will provide an extension to the traditional use of telepresence.

The purpose of the Hoover project is to provide users an opportunity to view and assimilate the multi-cultural establishments of private residences over the internet. This will be accomplished with the concept of telepresence. Telepresence is defined as the ability for a user to experience a remote environment using a probe that provides audio and visual information back to the user. Traditionally, telepresence probes are used for job efficiency, to interact with hazardous environments, and to experience environments inaccessible to humans. The Hoover Project will provide an extension to the traditional use of telepresence. This mobile probe will be installed in residential homes to view the intimate lifestyles of several residences in Silicon Valley. The public is viewers who have access to the internet. All information will be gathered, processed, documented, synthesized, and statistically analyzed for abnormalities.

The implication of this project relates to information privacy and Big Brotherism. We are in a society consistently monitored by forms of electronic surveillance. For example, credit ratings may describe a person as likely to commit treason; computer monitoring may statistically decide a person is likely to be a serial killer; in addition, internet surveillance will provide a vast amount of information on a person's intimate lifestyle. Agencies are now quantifying this information to suggest a person's likeliness to commit potential criminal activities. How easy it would be for computers to make moral decisions.

From a technical point of view, a mobile probe will be designed and constructed to carry a video camera and a microphone. All video and audio information will be transmitted wireless to a base computer workstation. This information will then be transferred on-the-fly to a World Wide Web page, and it will be accessible via the internet. The user will have the ability to view video and audio information over the internet and be able to control the probe using Netscape, a public domain browser.