Self-driving chairs for those that hate waiting in line.
Japan has a ton of people, and they acutally have perfected waiting in line in a lot of ways.**
Typially when you enter a bank in Japan, you will grab a ticket and then wait on padded benchs for your number to be called. It's a lot better than standing the whole time. But some of the ques for ATMS during peak lunch hours can be rough.
Japan is also word famous for their croded trains and how they push people in like sardines in a can. So I don't see this solving that problem, but I wouldn't doubt they are thinking about ways to automate that as well.
Currently Nissan, the car manufacturer, in Japan is taking waiing in line to a step further by making autonomous chairs.
They got the idea from their R&D into self driving vehicles and the applications could be endless.
Your office chair could literraly drive your around the office to your meetings at the scheduled tiems and put you in the place designated before hand. Of course it seems ridiculouse but if you are so busy focused on other things then you could be working while in transist. And if it ws say a college campus where a professor has to go across campus to teach then it could be a lot of work time saved.
There are also discussions of making it go more upright, so a person isn't alwasy in the sitting position to elimnate circulation issues.
It's all well and good, but I think I'll wait for the ones that also force you to exercise to avoid becoming one of those characters in the wall-e movie n the floaty chairs :)
**You can find a documentary on youtube on how they manage traffic flow in the world's busiest train station, Shinjuku, on a daily basis - It's really mind boggling and yes takes a lot of deticated workers who works long shifts.
Insanity takes over, people lose their legs and yes welcome all to the world of
"Idiocracy "