'Self-Parking' Office Chair Can Push Itself In

And the strangest tech innovation of the month award goes to the engineers at Nissan for inventing an office chair that puts itself neatly back under a desk at the sound of a clap. It's true: The "Intelligent Parking Chair" has motors and wheels in its circular base that sync with cameras placed in a room. When somebody claps, the chair navigates its way back to the proper location, reports Jalopnik. (Watch the video here.) It's also more of a publicity stunt than a new product: Nissan is looking to generate publicity for its soon-to-be-unveiled technology for self-parking cars, notes Engadget. At least 10 models will have some iteration of the tech by 2020.

As a publicity stunt, however, it seems to be succeeding, because auto and tech blogs are picking up on the story. Carscoops, for instance, is intrigued: "Considering how seamlessly the chairs seem to work, we wouldn't be surprised to see a technology company try and make them a production reality." Nissan teamed with an actual chair company, Okamura, to create the seats, so that might not be too far-fetched. But Fortune has a practical concern: "It’s unclear what clap-powered chairs would do if the whole office ever burst into applause." (Tesla is starting to dabble with "autopilot" mode.)