Synthetic attendance--immersive communications with people in a meeting happening afar--has been one of mankind's elusive dreams. From the ill-fated Picture Phone to a Cisco Telepresence room today, technologists have sought the Holy Grail for this universal desire.  The Exploratory DSP column of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine (November 2009) discusses critical questions in immersive communications that are still awaiting resolution.  Read more of "It depends on your point of view" by C. House.