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
On top of what OP said, why aren’t disabled people one of the target demographics*? Its literally a gaming experience that is mobile was also being able to be super accessible physically for a lot of disabled people. It’s also bad design practices, you need to consider access from the start - trying to shoehorn it in later can lead to sub-par access measures, or much bigger re-designs, or worst case just, parts of it not being accessible at all.
There’s a really cool episode of the podcast Factually touching on what you’re talking about.
(Side note, I’ve never seen this website but I really dig that it has question and answer summaries on the bottom. That was super cool.)
Edit: also, as somebody who is disabled who can’t lean forward without intense pain, these wheelchairs would be hell.
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.
That’s when it’s in the parked position. When it’s in motion the seat is raised and the wheels get out of the way.
If you zoom in on the photo of the chairs ostensibly “in motion” with the 4 support wheels lifted up and out of the way, the chair is still using little caster wheels underneath that will be a problem. You can see them at the corners.
These sorts of wheels are so problematic that there’s an aftermarket wheel for standard chairs to lift them up off the ground.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/Bpq712DVqis
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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.
Too late … American pharmaceuticals basically medicate the entire world with all kinds of exotic drugs for all kinds of mental disorders, conditions and situations.
It’s so normalized now that most people don’t even acknowledge that they, their family, their friends or the people they know are taking some sort of anti depressant, anti psychotic, simulant or mood altering drug to treat some condition.
I get it some modern drugs are needed by some people to treat a debilitating condition but I refuse to believe that a large percentage of the world needs all these drugs on a regular basis.
I upvoted as soon as I saw the wall-e pic lol
Wall•e
Soon, humans will forget how to walk
