Personal Trimentional Viewer

Not long after the phone, television and internet services merged, a single Holographic system, the Trimensional Reception, Interaction and Broadcast Endevour became the universal method of communication. Whether it was to chat with your Gran or watch the latest sports event on the other side of the world, Trimensional was the only way to do it. Being such a mouthful, most referred to it as TRIBE and most devices, as Trimensional Viewers, or TVs for short. The Personal Trimensional Viewer was an extension of TRIBE, a small encapsulated unit that would sit on your desk and show you a live, photo realistic, 3D Hologram of a chosen loved one, 24 hours a day. It didn't matter where they were or what they were doing, they'd be doing it in the little glass dome next to your mug of coffee. The concept was purely innocent and technically perfect... but it soon became apparent that there was a serious social flaw in it - namely every time your mother went to the toilet or had a shower... It was a disaster. One of the fastest selling products in history became one of the fastest failures - no one wanted them and they were returned in their tens of thousands. --- One rather lonely owner of a robot repair centre didn't have any friends. He just had robots. Lots of robots. Thousands of robots. They weren't even his either, not most of them - most of them had their own owners and they were merely in the grounds of one of his estates while they were being repaired, serviced, or in some sad cases, dismantled for parts. Keeping everyone updated on the progress of their own unit was tough, as many considered their robot "part of the family" and the thought of them standing in a forest or field, waiting for attention from a maintenance Sprog, meant that a progress bar in the system just wasn't enough - they needed personal reassurance that everything was going fine. The constant calls were enough to drive a business owner potty! --- A chance mistake at the recycling depot changed this repairman's fortunes, when instead of his usual weekly delivery of robot parts, 5 hovertrucks full of returned Personal Trimensional Viewers were dumped on his doorstep. Once the initial distress had passed, a thought occurred. A number of units were set up to provide realtime views of individual robots as they were worked on - this was exactly what he needed! A few frantic calls later and he'd contacted the dejected inventor. Explaining his idea, both men suddenly saw a brighter future ahead and it was agreed that all returned units would be forward to the repair centre instead of recycled. Life was much simpler now. On picking up a faulty robot, the anxious owner would be handed their own Personal Trimension Viewer. This would be tuned to show their very own Rotund or Ruckus 24/7, right there on their desk at work or coffee table at home. Being able to see their brave little guy any time of the night or day wasn't just a relief, people found it fascinating to watch. Before he knew it, people were bringing in their Sprogs for tune-ups, adjustments and refitting, just so they could watch it all being done, like some sort of mechanised reality TV show. It became apparent that while people may not want to watch other humans any time of day, they did want to see what their robots were doing and many asked if they could keep the PTV once their bot was returned. They could of course. For a price."