Baggage!

February 27th, 2016| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Lugging your heavy luggage around is a pain, even if it has wheels. If only baggage had feet and could walk with you. Well, they don’t. But now they can follow you around.

Declared Alex Libman, co-founder and CEO of NUA Robotics, an Israeli company:

Any object can be smart and robotic. We want to bring robots into everyday life.”

There have been other attempts to create smart suitcases.

Bluesmart raised over $2 million in crowdfunding for a suitcase than can be tracked with a smartphone, and can even tell travelers what it weighs.

“Space Case 1,” unveiled last year offers a fingerprint-based lock system, a wireless speaker, and a text notification system that will tell you when it arrives at your designated baggage carousel.

[It will also prevent you from grabbing the wrong suitcase, which, BTW, your humble blogger has done in the past. Now if only I’d had “Space Case 1,” it might have yelled at me through its wireless speaker: “Hey, it’s me you want!”]

There is also “Trunkster,” a zipless suitcase that promises travelers “the most streamlined travel experience.” It has a sliding cover, it locks and weighs and tracks itself.

Or, if you like, you could go for the “City Cab,” which actually doubles as a scooter that can take two passengers and go at 12 mph for a maximum of 37 miles!

[Now, with that, I can pick it up and ride it to my Uber or to the parking lot!]

“NeXstep,” more modestly, converts to a chair.

But NUA Robotics has done one better. Its product has a camera sensor and, aided by a Bluetooth device paired to your smartphone, it can follow you around. The gizmo has a “proximity detection” feature, permitting it to move at the same pace as its owner, and all the while avoiding obstacles. Right now it can do 3 mph, but that’s being worked on. It can, of course, be pulled around manually, if the owner so chooses.

[I’d like a grocery shopping cart outfitted this way.]

A built-in rechargeable battery powers the suitcase, as well as other devices that can be charged through a USB input. Anti-theft alarm is standard. Plus it can send real-time data, like its weight and location, to your phone.

This may all sound like extreme luxury, but it could aid the elderly and the disabled.

Made with Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene derivatives, it is tough and impact-resistant. Waterproof materials are being looked at. At about 2½ lbs, it looks a bit clunky, though others think it is sleek and sturdy.

Carrying your baggage around—no, having it follow you around!

OK for clothes and books and toiletries and stuff, but I really don’t want my “baggage” shadowing me.

But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, …
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13

Why lug that stuff around? For the believer in Christ, God has forgiven his/her sins—past, present, and future.

As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Psalm 103:12

Dumped in the sea, it says:

Yes, You will cast all their sins Into the depths of the sea.
Micah 7:19

Behind his back.

For You have cast all my sins behind Your back.
Isaiah 38:17

God is gracious!

“For I will be merciful to their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more.”
Hebrews 8:12

Nope, I don’t need no baggage haunting me!