Talk About Convergence, The New Toyota i-REAL

I was watching an episode of one of my favorite BBC television shows Top Gear when I first saw Toyota's latest 'vehicle'. The i-REAL is a Personal Mobility Concept that is planned to be put on sale in 2011. It functions primarily as a mode of transportation, standing upright it has a moves around at walking speed but press a button and it drops down to 'high-speed mode' capable of a top speed of 20 mph. This all seems great but its hardly what makes Toyota's new project a prime example of technological convergence.

The thing that struck me was that Toyota has put a communication interface in the chair. From this interface you can communicate with other i-REALs, search for desired locations, and even message your friends to meet you there. It acts like a fast wheel-chair with i-phone capabilities. Here is the actual Top Gear clip that I saw:



This chair seems like great fun but are the implications, for American's especially, really beneficial? When I picture the i-REAL or future versions becoming extremely popular one image comes to mind... Anyone who has seen the movie Wall-E i imagine would agree that the i-REAL seems like a less complicated version these:


In America especially, people are already overweight, spending loads of time in front of television sets, computers, smart phones, etc. Do we really need to combine these forms of media into a mobile chair? This is just a first try at a media convergence chair and I would expect that future models would combine forms of media in even more sophisticated ways. It seems that there would hardly be a reason to walk around when you could simple drive there. I can appreciate the i-REAL as a successful invention, and it is definitely cool but if we should fully embrace convergence technology such as this one, I cannot say.



Sources:

Video
Image