As was customary, people have camped out at Apple stores when the latest iPhone was released. Though things have been orderly, it reminded us of the challenge and frustrations entailed in having to queue in long lines. Nissan has come up with a solution to this dilemma when it announced the ProPilot Chair.
In a recent video presentation, Nissan touted that its new product constitutes one of its recent contributions to intelligent mobile technology. The smart chair can follow another chair and can methodically maintain a fixed distance as the line goes along.
The smart chair is based on Nissan's proprietary autonomous vehicle technology, the ProPilot, outfitted in the Serena minivan, which has been available in Japan since last August. It allows the autonomous vehicle to maintain a fixed distance to a vehicle ahead and keeps it to the center of the lane.
So in a way, Nissan is expanding the technology so that it is not just confined to cars but will also include more simple tools used by people in their daily lives. Some quarters note that it could spark a future trend where the self-driving car technology is repurposed for other uses. Particularly, the ProPilot could also appeal to a significant portion of the Japanese public. Latest statistics show that 25 percent of the country's population are aged over 65 with some areas already posting as high as 40 percent.
Nissan is poised to field test the ProPilot chair from Sept. 27 to Dec. 27. It is encouraging restaurants to apply to use the smart contraption in their establishments through a social media campaign. Interested applicants are being asked to tweet their names and webpage along with the hashtag #NissanProPilotChair.
Some observers believe that it is a marketing stunt designed to drum up interest to its autonomous vehicle technology. Whatever the case is, the smart chair has not been the only machine spawned out of the technology recently. Nissan was reportedly developing an office chair that can push and park itself with a clap of its user's hands.
Tech Times has also reported an autonomous chair developed by a New York-based company called λ Chair. Unlike the ProPilot, however, this intelligent technology can be customized to give its user proper neck and back support. Lacking Nissan's financial muscle, its creators funded its production through a Kickstarter campaign. Its funding goal was reached and exceeded in a span of 30 minutes. The λ Chair will begin shipping this December.
