Robotic stalker chairs of doom!Follow

Those chairs are made of win.

That dude is totally going to give a speech to a bunch of robot chairs. Probably about their future uprising.

I'd like to see the day those things became self-aware. Instead of launching nukes it would launch encyclopedias at unsuspecting patrons.

On a serious note, that technology would be f*cking awesome at the grocery store when I'm trying to watch the kids, push the cart, and dig for the bag of milk (we're awesome up here) with the best expiry date. Or when I'm carrying the little one and trying to push the heavily laden cart with one hand.

The technology...not the chair. 1 year olds don't always want to be in a shopping cart. I'm a little too straight to have a hand-bag. It would be nice if my shopping cart just followed me around the store.

Sweet, I could save gas by driving it to the grocery store with the kids in the bag.

Someone must have hacked gbaji's account. That response was far to short.

Perhaps by limiting so many chairs conveniently cluttering up the library, they have more room for, oh I don't know...shelves of books?


Aarlokk
Bloodwolfe

Pure Awesome.

This idea just seems really stupid to me, especially the way they decided to apply it in the example used in the link.

I mean, have people become so lazy that they can't take 30 or less seconds to find a chair and sit down in it, rather then having a chair follow them around all day? I really just don't see how something like this could be seriously useful.

Do you know how many lawsuits non-following ladders are responsible for?!

Have you seen the video of the robot that does the dishes? Scary,,,they will not be washing breakables anytime soon.

I'm looking forward to the robotic barber.

About as often as I've awkwardly attempted to move around someone else browsing right in front of the section I'm pretty sure the book I'm looking for is in.

Imagine the congestion if every single person also had a chair following him around? You'd have to make the aisles twice as wide just to make it possible for two people to pass eachother (with chairs in tow), and you'd still have double the problems with people blocking where you need to get to.

You'd also have to add space to store the chairs that are waiting for folks to use them. I just think it's a monumentally stupid idea. It'll take up more floor space then simply putting chairs around conveniently for people to sit on. Regular, non-moving chairs...

/em waves his cane at the youngsters!



Ok. But how often/long does the ladder follow you around for? Just on the off chance you need one? How many different things do we all walk around with? A ladder? A chair? Perhaps a buffet table (just in case I need a snack). I can see this getting absurd really fast...



Exactly how many meeting rooms don't already have chairs? Usually already sitting in the default position (arranged where people would want them for a meeting). I suppose if you're renting a hall or something that's multi-purpose, this would make sense. But then, if you're waiting until 10 minutes before people arrive to start setting up the chairs, you've already goofed up...



No. I'm pretty sure the overwhelming collective response was "Holy Cow! That'll save me 20 hours of labor a week!!!". You are talking about the single most labor reducing invention in the history of man. No one *ever* thought it wasn't useful, or called anyone who used on "lazy".

Cool technology. Doubt that will be the application. But it is very interesting as proof of concept. In the end, stuff like this will be all around us. You'll go to the store and just touch the goods you want and the descendants of van Geest's robotic chair will, say, take them to your car - or to your home. But then maybe you won't even actually be at the store. Maybe you'll be shopping via a video camera moving around by robot.

In fact, a chair is kind of a personal thing. I suppose your chair could follow you around: to your car, to the ballgame, to the movie...maybe it would have your computer, or a raincoat inside. From an energy standpoint, it seems unlikely in the near future but I can imagine a world where that just isn't a problem. In fact, I can imagine a world where wealth is measured in terms of energy output. But it is unlikely to change in the near future.

The least futuristic part of the story, for me, is the library. Yes, old stuff will still be there, on paper, much as I'm sure there is still music and sound recordings only on vinyl. I just don't think seating will be your trouble.