Originally published at: Still no flying cars, but now there's a flying cart to shop with - Boing Boing
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Ug. That text-to-speech narration was terrible. Korea has so many fluent English speakers, it’s a shame that the researchers didn’t employ one of them for this. Or at least go for something better than that bargain-basement text-to-speech program.
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I can’t figure out the target audience for this. Just doing it in the store seems pointless, they don’t even do the maintenance on wheeled ones now, this failing and falling on your foot is a lot worse than a cart not moving. Using it over rough terrain makes sense, but anyone rich enough to afford this wouldn’t be pushing their groceries home.
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Looks to me like it was just an experimental academic project at a university, not necessarily something that’s likely to ever turn into a commercial product. They didn’t even mention the noise issues.
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certainly noise, and depending on where this ‘shopping cart’ is used not a small amount of blown dust and aerosol-ed $!@#. (i shall names it the “haboobrone”)
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So what exactly what problem is this solving that a regular cart can’t achieve? Especially considering energy use (none), maintenance and durability of regular ol’ dumb shopping carts.
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The primary cause of instability in the system is the human at the handle. Take the human out of the loop. Self-guiding stable platforms would actually be useful in a lot of real world situations.
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Are you like… are you a robot? You’re supposed to tell me if you are duuude
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Having the basket automatically return to the store rather than be strewn about the parking lot/neighborhood is another potential benefit.
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Rough terrain that’s also perfectly clean (with no dirt, dust or sand to get blown into your face) maybe. I’m just thinking about how dirty I get when I clean off my driveway or sidewalk with an electric leaf blower and how even when I wear a mask I end up inhaling a lungful of dust.
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Based on the image of the system in use, it’s for transporting bulky (but light!) objects in areas that have lots of stairs (or presumably, in possible future applications, uneven terrain). I suppose if you can boost the power sufficiently, you could transport bulky and heavy objects across uneven terrain as well, at which point it actually becomes useful, as it has use cases that aren’t better served by just carrying the stuff (in e.g. a backpack of some sort).
Stairs.
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I counter with Slide technology. Weeeee
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Nobody wants to build infrastructure these days. 
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…and for going up?
/the correct answer, as always, is pneumatic tubes
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“Cleanup in aisles 5, 6, 7, and 8.”
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Exactly, but may end up being a more specialised floating ‘wheelbarrow’ perhaps for landscape gardeners, arborists, builders, etc. or one of many other domains where it may have some utility. Even of not, I suspect the real benefit of the research/design project is in the sensors and algorithms to maintain level flight despite changes in the load.
(And @thomdunn - typo “Palletrone” not “Pallentrone”.)
And the Daleks have expressed interest in the patent. But may be suing for patent infringement.
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Calling it a shopping cart trivializes this. This seems amazing. Imagine it carrying a stretcher over rough terrain in rescue scenarios. Getting materials to remote or wild areas that have no road would be helpful also. It will need to get stronger, but this is not just a toy.
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Just imagine the noise in the queue at checkout
VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
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“Daleks do not climb stairs, they level buildings!”
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