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Live Luggage Ready To Roll
LifeLuggage is a power-assisted form of baggage; a 12V NiMH rechargeable battery pack supplies power to the wheels when the handle is gripped and the bag is tilted.
(Live Luggage has power assist)
The bags weighs twenty-three pounds; about six pounds accounts for the battery and motor. The powered bags are able to provide assistance for about 1.5 miles of walking through airports and train terminals.travel under a 32kg load. The price? About $1,300.
Technovelgy readers will recall the autoporter from John Brunner's great novel Shockwave Rider.
From now until his credit expired the machine would carry his bag in its soft plastic jaws and follow him as faithfully as a well-trained hound, which indeed it resembled, down to the whimper it was programmed to utter at the 55-minute mark, and the howl at 58.
(Read more about Brunner's autoporter)
The idea of some kind of help in carrying your bags is apparently hugely popular; see these links for related items, many of which are robotic:
- TMSUK Robot Carries Your Bags
- Porter 'Robots' For Baggage, If Not People
- Russian Robot Suitcase
- RoboPorter Carries Your Baggage, Guides You
- New Porter Robot - Matsushita Mechanorg
Via Engadget.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/24/2008)
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I might also be thinking of K-9 from Doctor Who.
