Last weekend I was invited to the birthday party of a family member: my mother celebrated her 61^rst anniversary. It was beyond all question that I would participate, of course. So I bought a cheese cake, decorated it with a candle, made some coffee and prepared everything for a comfortable Saturday evening. When the time came to join the celebration I arranged everything, lighted the cake’s candle and started Skype. Although the party took place over 9,000 km away from me, I was very involved and had a very good time: I was chatting to my siblings and to my parents, could witness the emotions during the unpacking of the birthday presents and enjoyed eating cake in the bosom of my family. It felt very natural and I almost forgot about the big distance between us.

As a result I was quite shocked when I saw the picture of “me” sitting in company of my family, seeing nothing more than a flat picture of my face displayed on a small screen. This image didn’t really reproduce the sensation I had during this time. And I have to realize that there is still a long way to go to realize natural visual representations of ourselves for this kind of long distance communication. But even so or maybe especially for that reason I have to admit that sometimes it feels like a small miracle to me: some very common information technology can provide a really precious enrichment in our daily life sometimes.

Frederik