Interactive arts to replace traveling to rehearsals?

Back when I started teaching violin, and once when I moved far away and left my second violin teacher, I had or taught lessons via the telephone. Not long ones of course, we used the phone on speaker phone and I would listen to my student play a troubling passage or listen for specific notes and answer questions. Never thought much about it at the time, this was about ten years ago. Somehow it never occurred to me then that technology would advance enough to easily allow an interactive arts performance or rehearsal. Recently my friend and I, who have to perform Kodaly duet for violin and cello in May, were joking and stressing out about a lack of rehearsal time since we live about five hours away from each other and are always busy with school, work, and personal practice to travel that distance more often the once a month. We said we should have rehearsals via the internet using some chat program with video and sound. We were laughing and agreed that it would cut down on the fighting and arguing that has a tendency to arise after a maddened rehearsing day during one of our brief opportunities to practice and visit. We end up over practicing at all hours of the day and night, and accomplish less then we should, just because of time constraints.

In research class this evening our professor brought up the reality of interactive arts actually being put to use. All joking aside, I actually did not know that NYU regularly supports these programs and performances as a part of an "interensemble" sort of group where two separate performances happen simltaniously in two different parts of the world.

Please see the NYU bulletin below.
http://www.nyu.edu/public.affairs/releases/detail/330

How will this change and evolve? Will people really have the technology to support an interactive rehearsal or performance through the internet in their homes on personal computers? How will this change the "traditional" classical rehearsal? What negative effects might it contribute over the long term.