At the upcoming SXSW Conference… Honda will give attendees a chance to try out a new mobility device… specifically designed for mixed reality entertainment experiences.
Users can steer… without the use of their hands — they simply have to lean into one direction to move forwards, backwards, sideways or diagonally.
As someone who uses a chair regularly…
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No back support. Whoever sits on that will be hating life in less than 20 minutes.
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Leaning to make the chair move, what if I’m just uncomfortable and need to change position?
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The little caster wheels at each corner are useless and will get caught on any imperfection in the road or texture change, bringing the chair to a halt.
Did they actually, you know, talk to any disabled people while designing this?
Did they actually, you know, talk to any disabled people while designing this?
No, why would they when that’s not the target demographic or use case?
specifically designed for mixed reality entertainment experiences
Sounds like they’re not in use as mobility devices for the disabled but as a more interactive ride vehicle at an attraction, which also means the uncomfortableness is less of an issue and that they’ll likely be used in places where the caster wheels will be on smooth surfaces and not an issue
Frankly this sounds like a neat idea and could be something very cool, but we’ll have to see it in action first and the first generation or 2 are likely to suck monkey balls
Well, maybe the first generation or two wouldn’t suck if they had consulted people who use wheelchairs and know how they should be designed. Too bad they thought the same way you do and said ‘why bother’!
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This path is disgusting
Good, Gourd. Can we please just stop all this abstraction away from the real world? It’s all a little too Brave New World. We just need Soma and our AR goggles, and then we never need to leave the house again. 🤦
We just need Soma
Maybe why our keepers are allowing pot to be legalized.
People already sleep in SocialVR in VR headsets. Social Sleeping.
Thats just the tip of the spear.
Wtf?
The mixed reality actually makes this make sense.
The big draw back with that is weight and battery life. Throwing it on a scooter negates all that, only the display and audio needs to be in the head unit.
And hands free steering frees them up to navigate the mixed reality.
If they’re smart about it, it can monitor wait times and distance, maybe even how many are enroute to each ride. So no matter where you are, you know how long till your on any ride.
Like sure, dystopian as fuck.
But the people in Wall-E had a life sooooo much better than modern Americans. Unless there was some Morlock worker group we never saw
I watched Wall-E last weekend. They didn’t mention in the Buy-N-Large advertisement that the Morlock worker group was left on earth to starve when the upper class was sent to live on a luxury liner.
I mean, it’s not going to happen anyways.
No park would get these, because people would just zoom around the park and wait in huge lines.
They want people walking slow and getting tired so you buy a $10 fountain drink and $15 soft pretzel. The want parents tired and stopping at games/shops for a break and their kid begging for money
Wall•e
