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The Hubo FX-1 Promises An Easy Future for Lazy People Everywhere
by Kris on 6/7/2007 (1) 
 | | Put legs on a chair? That will NEVER work! | | Imagine a future where you never have to get out of your chair. Need to go to the kitchen for another beer, let the chair walk you there. Need to change the channel but can’t find the remote, let the chair walk you there. Need to use the bathroom, again the chair comes through, though it stops at unzipping your pants.
The future is clearly geared toward the lazy. The Hubo FX-1, developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, is more proof of this. The gigantic chair with legs can carry a human weighing up to 100 kilograms (about 220 pounds for you metric haters). The Hubo jockey can easily maneuver the walking chair by using the built in joystick.
The chair stands a menacing two meters tall and weighs in at 150 kilograms, approximately the weight of four Nicole Richies, and is said to have the killing power of two David Hasselhoffs. Each ankle of the chair has a 3-axis force/torque sensor which measures the normal force and 2 moments and each foot comes complete with a inclination sensor to measure the slope of the ground below. The chair uses a built in rate gyro working in conjunction with the inclination sensor to keep the chair stable, much the same technology used in the Imperial AT-ST walker of Star Wars fame.
A recent polling at the local Big Boy salad bar indicated that the majority of Americans would prefer having a chair that would walk them around the house to walking themselves and about half admitted they would leave their spouse if they were presented with the opportunity to own such a chair at a reasonable cost.
Future applications of the Hubo FX-1 include ferrying lazy people to the fridge, helping disabled people get around the house, and a full-scale assault on the Ewok population located on the forest moon of Endor.
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