Nissan reveals self-driving chair Nissan has revealed a thing called the “ProPILOT Chair” that it says exemplifies “the benefits of its intelligent mobility technology” because it “ automatically queues on behalf of its occupant, sparing them the hassle of standing in line.” As the video below shows, the chairs are packed with motion-sensing kit and can follow …
Here's an idea: what about miniaturisation as well ? Imagine a system where the chair is invisible, allowing for more customer to wait in line ! To avoid the hassle to have to look for whose chair is first, you could give people a number, which, let's get crazy here, would go in a sequence. Then you would have a clever system showing what number is up, so people can look it up to see if it is their turn.
What's more, if you show that number at multiple places, you might even be able not to have to stand in line at all !
Too complicated, it would never work!
(In fact, half the places where I've seen it it actually doesn't work, because the bod behind the counter / receptionist or whatever forgets to press the 'next' button, or it turns out the 'next' person has wandered off to do something else so we twiddle our thumbs for a while until they press 'next' again. Perhaps the moving chairs aren't such a bad idea after all...)
But these chairs will help... As my ass will be pointing downwards so all toxic emissions will be absorbed by the material, there is an additional benefit that nobody would want to steal it afterwards - I call that win-win.
Flame because those emissions are very combustible!
It's not so much that I want one personally, but I'd like them to be around. I can imagine they would give you more of a sense that you were getting somewhere, rather than just waiting for your number or name to be called.
And they would be very useful at airport departure lounges.
Good article, but may I complain about the excrescence "societal" in the subhead? There is a perfectly good word "social" which means exactly what "societal" is apparently used to mean. We really should stand firm against the ever-growing tendency to add unnecessary syllables to perfectly good words.
I much prefer the type of line where I don't have to morosely stand around for hours moving one step at a time in lockstep with the other people around me.
Shuffling chairs down a queue is just stupid. It's solving a problem that you should not have in the first place. If I have to wait for my turn, why not let me spend the wait any way I want to, like in the coffee shop. Like with the gizmo they give you in a restaurant to signal you when the table or your order is ready.
As you might tell, I'm not the type of person that camps in line for three days to pick up Harry Potter and his new Wizard Phone.
I'm sure there's a place in hell for both the DHs that came up with this absurdity and the certified AHs who decided to actually put R&D money into it.
At a time when the world is desperately needing solutions to real problems (water, energy, health, etc.) seeing a corporation such as Nissan spend on this utter crap is really quite annoying.
End of times indeed ...
Indeed. I'm not sure why the moving chair is even necessary. What's the use case except to give those who are lazy a place to sit. Before I get jumped about the "what about the mobility impaired"? I've seen very few places where seemingly healthy people will stand up and offer a seat to someone with an obvious impairment.
Given these could know their position in the queue without actually physically being in a queue they could integrate Tinder, Grindr etc. so the passengers could do something more interesting while waiting. Some kind of countdown estimated front of queue could spice things up a bit.
Think of the possibilities.
These chairs could be used to pack more people into a given space. You would not need any aisle to walk down, the chairs (and people) would just flow around you as you walked through. No more getting out of your seat at the theater every time some one in the middle needs out.
The chairs could automatically remove anyone from the theater that talks to loud or uses a phone during a performance.
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