Dutch designer Jelte van Geest’s RFID-enabled robotic chair is for Openbare Bibliotheek Endhoven, and it’s fantastic. What you do is swipe your RFID-enabled library card in front of the chair’s sensor, which then follows you (or your card) around the library so you always have somewhere to sit. Once you cross a line near the checkout counter, the chair returns back to its docking station to re-juice and get ready for the next guy’s arse. The video after the jump illustrates how it works. [Momeld via Technabob via DVICE]
Chairs that can walk are nothing new, but this is the first version that I have seen that you can actually buy. The mechanics in this eight-legged chair are sophisticated enough to move a “passenger” around the room, but there is no information available about how one would actually steer this thing, how fast it can walk and how much weight it can lift. These are things I would like to know before I drop 15,000 Euros, (or $25,000) on a chair with no cushion. [Product Page via Gizmowatch via Slashgear]
What do you get when you combine a robot and a chair? The Hubo FX-1 chairbot, of course. In what is perhaps my favourite robot design yet, this giant chair with legs looks like it came out of some ridiculous ’80s sci-fi movie or something, but it’s very, very real.
It looks good so far, but what they really need to do is figure out how to get the legs folded up underneath so it can sit on the ground as a regular chair. Then, when your friend sits down, you hit a button on the remote control and suddenly he’s 6 feet in the air and terrified on a walking chairbot. Awesome.
Hit the jump for a video of the walking chairbot in action. More »
