Museums trying out robots as tour guides

Meaux, France

NEAR the edge of a parapet of stacked sandbags, a test robot rumbles, offering visitors hundreds of kilometres away a bleak view of military life in World War I trenches.

A real French or German soldier could never have seen more than about three metres along the zigzag shelters. But now, at the Musée de La Grande Guerre, or the Museum of the Great War, ultimately anyone in the world will be able to pilot a robot by computer to zoom in for a close look at cramped replicas of German and French dugouts.