Using the Giraffe, a distant team member can interact and socialize with peers at their company's headquarters without ever stepping on a plane. An engineer can see and speak with anyone on the factory floor, even from a different country. These capabilities decrease travel expenses while fostering collaboration.

The Giraffe is a mobile robot that can be moved around its location by remote control using the Internet. The Giraffe allows a user to hear, see, and speak at a far away location, just like traditional video conferencing. This fusion of robotics and video conferencing allows a user to feel like they are at the robot's location. Because people near the robot can see and hear the user, they interact with him as if he were truly present. In a sense, the robot acts as a stand-in for the user.

Do you manage teams at multiple geographic locations? Now you can "manage-by-walking-around" even if you're not there. Keep teams focused on their goals and build camaraderie using impromptu water-cooler talks and casual chats, just like if you were there. If you manage a factory floor or lab space, you can inspect progress from afar without relying on periodic status meetings.

You may be surprised to learn that most executives say those who work from home for an employer are less likely to get promoted than their desk-tethered counterparts.

But Julie Kampf isn't. Kampf, the president of Englewood-based executive search firm JBK Associates Inc., knows first-hand how tough on a career telecommuting can be. She tried it and suffered, and she has seen qualified job candidates get overlooked because they dared to inquire about working from home – even for one day a week.

"For me, working at home was detrimental,'' says Kampf, who declined to name the employer. She says that when she worked from home in 1993, she put in about 15 hours each workday, and still couldn't please the boss. "Even though I was extremely productive, I was pretty much told 'I need to see your face here' by my boss at the time,'' she said. "It was miserable.''

The study's results fly in the face though of a growing movement. Since 1990, the number of teleworkers has grown to more than 45 million from about 4 million says the Telework Coalition. Even President Bush and other top administrators have championed telework as a vital part of business-continuity plans. Gas prices, traffic congestion and housing costs are also factors driving telecommuting.

Increasingly, workers are simply not taking paid days off from work, even when weeks are made available to them. More than one-third (37 percent) of respondents said they anticipate not using all of their time off this year.

Fourteen percent of respondents polled said they hadn't taken a vacation this year longer than a long weekend, while 24 percent of workers reported that they had not taken a single vacation day this year.

The news doesn't improve among those who are actually using their vacation benefits. Thirty-nine percent of professionals polled said they check in with their offices most days, if not every day, while on vacation. In total, 72 percent of respondents said they maintain at least some connection with their employment headquarters while away, via e-mail and phone.

It's not just the worker ants staying connected while they're supposed to be winding down—87 percent of managers in the survey reported that they keep in contact with their offices while taking time off.

Many argue that the technological advances in communication and connectivity have led to a state of over-connectedness and an inability to unwind.

This rootless army is growing 10% annually, according to Gartner Dataquest research. The reason? Corporations are increasingly supportive of teleworking for reasons that range from saving money on office space to needing a backup in the event of a natural disaster or terror attack.

"With technology what it is, it's far easier to bring the work to the people than the people to the work," says Jim Ware of the Future of Work, a Bay Area enterprise that helps large companies such as Boeing anticipate workplace trends.

Ware says working out of a "third place" — neither home nor office, it's anything from Starbucks to the local library — does raise "a host of human resources issues related to keeping track of people you don't see much."

But in the end, "employers are realizing that it's about the work, not about the hours in an office."

You've surely seen this crowd while popping in for that morning macchiato. They claim prime tabletops and battle for electrical outlets, all with the zombie-like gaze of people who physically are there but mentally are engaged with phantoms at the other end of a wireless signal.

The report showed one in six U.S. employees work from home at least once a week. Seventy percent of those telecommuters work for others, while 30 percent are self-employed, the chamber said, citing data from the Economic Policy Foundation.

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed there were 25 million part-time workers and 10 million independent contractors. Some 10 million workers are self-employed and there are 24 million small businesses — 18 million of which are sole proprietorships with no employees, the report showed.

Direct selling for companies like Avon and Amway is done by 17 million Americans, often in addition to a regular job, it said, using data from the Direct Selling Association.

The Chamber said some people may fall into more than one category — such as a self-employed person who telecommutes or a part-time worker who also sells Avon products from home.

A survey of 941 remote and mobile workers around the world finds that 10 percent of telecommuters work nude. The survey found that all respondents relaxed their personal habits when working remotely. While about 39% of respondents of both sexes said they wear sweats while working from home, 12% of males and 7% of females wear nothing at all. 44% of women said they showered on work-at-home days, as opposed to men, who were slightly more likely to shave (33%) than wash (30%).