from Hacker News

Ori – Robotic transformation of interior spaces

by jchoong on 7/17/16, 9:27 AM with 48 comments

  • by david-given on 7/17/16, 3:42 PM

    From Andrew Plotkin's Left Foot Living, an arts review pamphlet set in the future:

    ---snip---

    Blind Spot Storage Solutions are selling a space management tool which is -- well, certainly the most efficient we've ever heard of. It's based on the "subliminal" solutions, which create an illusionary ceiling a few inches below your real one, leaving several cubic meters of space for additional storage. But Blind Spot goes far beyond that.

    You tag all your possessions; and then the tool simply keeps them out of sight. Everywhere out of sight. Walk out of a room, and it will be immediately and silently packed with books, boxes, chotchkes, and whatever else you've tagged as "in storage". Go down the hall; just before you pass each doorway, the room beyond it will be siphoned free of detritus -- which will be packed elsewhere, leaving the room just as you expect it.

    The ceiling space is used for both storage and transport. Objects are whisked up into the ceiling, yanked around your living space, pulled down into efficient pile-ups. Protective fields ward everything against friction, acceleration, impact. More fields pump air around and baffle currents, preventing the explosive winds and supersonic lashings that would otherwise occur.

    You never see any of this. If you stand in the center of a room and turn around slowly, a tide of bric-a-brac is crawling behind you -- just beyond your peripheral vision, and from the walls to an inch from your back. Whip your head around, and it's gone. Moved. Just out of sight.

    The catch is reflections, of course. And shadows. Blind Spot strongly recommends that you tag mirrors, and anything polished. Also light sources. The tool can fake in reflections and light beams, if it knows to. If it doesn't, you'd better have nerves of steel.

    Not even slightly compatible with owning pets.

    ---snip---

    http://www.eblong.com/zarf/review/review-37.html. No date, alas, but posted years ago.

  • by renku on 7/17/16, 12:00 PM

    "robotic" part seems to be pure clickbait. From robotic you would expect something that would act autonomously. This one doesn't even seem to be automatic - requiring one to push a button or use some app to control it at the distance.

    Then again, that latter part looks scary - can somebody push the button in app to close the bed while you're sleeping? Hopefully there are some sensors to detect whether it's safe to perform the moving.

    ...in case there are such sensors, it might actually be properly robotic. Unfortunately no information about safety of this all is not given.

  • by m82labs on 7/17/16, 12:12 PM

    As someone that lives in the Southern US, all I can think about is the number of spiders that would live in the cubby the bed slides into.

  • by joezydeco on 7/17/16, 3:15 PM

    "Sorry, I can't come into the office today, my bedroom crashed and all my clothes are stuck inside it."

    I remember seeing some prior art somewhere. Oh yeah, found it:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io5_CBPjJ6M

  • by svantana on 7/17/16, 10:56 AM

    I like the idea, but I get wary at the thought of getting home at 3 AM (perhaps with company) and finding out that the bed extruding mechanism has failed... It seems the robotic part is a bit overkill, couldn't it just as well be mechanical/manual?

  • by wscott on 7/17/16, 1:44 PM

    That was a really confusing website to me. Lots of pictures and none that really explained what it did. The main important piece is the video in the middle, but that don't look like a video unless you pass your mouse over it. And with a slow network connection, it didn't happen to be animated as I scrolled by so I didn't notice it until the second pass.

    It appears to require a hard floor and I wonder if it would make grooves in the floor after a while.

  • by prodmerc on 7/17/16, 11:40 AM

    Yeah, remove the motorized part and it's a nice idea. I like multipurpose furniture and rooms. But the maintenance overhead is too much, unless you really, really need to save those 1-3 minutes on switching from bedroom to office...

  • by Animats on 7/17/16, 6:59 PM

    This concept is often used to expand storage space, where the storage shelves slide sideways. While there are electrically powered systems for long aisles, here's a much simpler system from Uline.[1]

    If you wanted to build something like Ori, minus the "robotic" part, you could just order the track and rollers from Uline, and build cabinetry out of Ikea parts atop a Uline base.

    Business opportunity: write an app to design such things, visualize them, and order the parts. Like Autodesk Kitchen Designer, which does kitchen cabinet planning.

    [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Moumo_m5G_8

  • by bane on 7/17/16, 4:17 PM

    So it's basically this guy's transforming Hong Kong apartment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB2-2j9e4co

  • by gbuk2013 on 7/17/16, 11:58 AM

    An extreme version of this is the amazing "transformer" flat design by a Hong Kong architect:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm-GpEis5uc

  • by archseer on 7/17/16, 12:32 PM

  • by tshadwell on 7/17/16, 6:08 PM

    Really cool product presented beautifully. But perhaps from being a security engineer, I wish it would say anything at all about how they're going to ensure a 16 year old kid can't pwn me from the internet and crush things -- here's praying it can't crush people.

    I've just started getting into the whole smarthome thing, it worries me how hard it is to get information about security characteristics or even standards enforcement for these (which appear to be mostly non-existent).

    I wish the public were more inclined to ask the question of 'but how is it secured?' when examining something to be placed in their home.

  • by fareesh on 7/17/16, 12:18 PM

    Hallowed are the Ori

  • by ChuckMcM on 7/17/16, 4:52 PM

    Not a particularly new concept, a variation on murphy beds. And as others have pointed out the 'robotic' title is not really appropriate. I am curious though if people find the design ethos in the furniture appealing. While I like the practical and cost effective nature of IKEA type simple design I don't find it particularly aesthetically appealing.

  • by pmarreck on 7/17/16, 2:30 PM

    > Guided by the principal

    It's "principle" in this case.

    http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/blog/english-mistakes/p...

  • by tankenmate on 7/17/16, 1:50 PM

    Hmm page doesn't show anything apart from the footer and header for me on Firefox nightly...

  • by tomp on 7/17/16, 2:42 PM

    Putting small motors into furniture now counts as "robotic"? Are we in a new bubble?!

  • by nemik on 7/17/16, 1:47 PM

    What keeps it from crushing you while you sleep?

  • by JabavuAdams on 7/17/16, 7:51 PM

    Apropos, as I just sold my house and am moving into a 1BR apartment. My plan was to slowly encase myself in machinery and assistants and diffuse outwards.

    I have this semi-related vision of mobile furniture locomoting from one apartment to the next, during a move, like something out of Fantasia.

  • by pmlnr on 7/17/16, 11:21 AM

    I guess when bioengineering finally(?) takes off, we'll eventually end up with http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Chairdogs

  • by throwanem on 7/17/16, 4:34 PM

    Oh, good. I didn't have enough maintenance problems to worry about already.

  • by banach on 7/17/16, 8:17 PM

  • by jbmorgado on 7/17/16, 1:36 PM

    It seems a step in the right direction, but I would really like to see a solution for the kitchen embedded in it... I can't imagine myself going out to eat everyday.

  • by yawaramin on 7/17/16, 3:59 PM

    So, like a fancy version of a Murphy bed?

  • by transfire on 7/17/16, 12:55 PM

    The tyranny of space.

  • by codecamper on 7/17/16, 12:06 PM

    particle board ftw!

  • by vonklaus on 7/17/16, 7:18 PM

    price not listed.