Could Autonomous, Motorized Living Rooms Be the Future of Cars?
People have been talking, speculating and predicting about driverless cars forever, but it’s still fun to take a look at some of the ideas out there — especially when they come from the designers of the Google phone.
San Francisco industrial design firm Mike and Maaike has come up with the atnmbl (which is “autonomobile” minus the vowels). The atnmbl is a driverless, seven-person living room that runs on solar and electric power. Passengers sit back, relax, surf the internet and even enjoy a drink at the bar while the vehicle takes them where they need to go.
The firm calls speed and acceleration “irrelevant considerations,” but the vehicle will have different settings, such as “I’m in a hurry” and “Take the scenic route.”
Mike and Maaike aren’t yet saying our roads will soon be packed with atnmbls (and boy, does that name have to go). They don’t see the vehicle hitting streets until 2040. In the meantime, we will not be holding our breath.
The End of Driving: Mike and Maaike Introduce the Autonomobile (Core77 via Autoblog)
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Why are the women being left out? How will they go and make the sandwiches? Where will they do the dishes? Is there a kitchen version in the works? Where's Al Sharpton and Jesse when you need them!?
Somewhere trying to make money off of Michael Jackson's demise.
Imagine T boning that thing at 50mph.Talk about breaking up housekeeping....
Puts a new meaning into the term "living in my car" or however the saying goes.
This atnmbl is bllsht.
could you ever get comfortable sitting in living room being driven by some automaton?
Does anyone remember that old saying about glass houses?
Oh yes, this is what we need...more useless technology, consuming tremendous amounts of energy and natural resources while nearly 20 percent of our own population doesn't even have basic health coverage - not to mention the overpopulation issue that plagues most of the world - but hey, let's plow blindly forward because this may be a money making project for the self-centered, globally unaware folks with more money than brains.
Get a life Karl! Mom told me to clean my plate when I was little because the children in Africa are starving! Guess what I clean my plate and wear a 40" waste and the children in Africa are still starving!
Oh by the way folks who dreamed up the term atnmbl, I don't know how to break it to you, a is a vowel!
Um... OK, a mobile home for the ultra rich in 2040, so what. It would be quite a scene to see that thing hit by a truck and the handsome yuppies inside get tossed around inside the atnmbl and have their blood and guts splashed all over the glass.