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Tokyo, Japan: Driverless Taxis Soon On The Streets?


In this advanced tech nation, where robot hotel bellhops lug luggage and humanoid clerks check you in, this shouldn’t be unexpected. According to official reports, visitors will be able to hail computerized cabs in the Japanese capital city by 2020.

Consider the possibilities. If you remember the 1976 movie, Taxi Driver, would you want a robotically insane Robert De Niro (Travis Bickle) driving you around town? Also, after settling into back seat, will the automatic taxi driver automatically run up the meter by taking the longest route to your hotel?

If there’s a major pro sports event or convention in town, will the automatic taxi driver automatically up the rate 500 percent? Will the mechanical taxi driver refuse to take anyone wearing a hoodie? Will the robot taxi driver be programmed to laugh hysterically as it aims at little old ladies in wheelchairs as they cross the street?

Will we too soon have to say sayonara to Tokyo’s human taxi drivers?

Guest Call: Room Service? Send Up Your Shrink PDF Print E-mail


Luxury hotels offer all kinds of room service amenities to their guests. Champagne, fancy dinners, escorts and more. Now the upscale Corinthia Hotel in London UK provides a psychiatrist and all the trimming for guests who are in need of soothing mental ministrations.

An overnight package deal costs $770 per person for one of the hotel’s special Superior King rooms. It includes dinner, breakfast, massage, yoga and psychiatric consultation. For non-guests who visit for the two-hour version of the experience, the cost is a mere $350.

Consider the emotional distress that happened due to the recent presidential election. It shouldn’t be too long before some ritzy U.S. hotels offer the same mental recovery treatment to its guests. For more info, go to www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/london/articles/corinthia-london-hotel-launches-worlds-first-neuroscientist-in-residence

 
 
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