DRM Chair – Chair that self-destructs after 8 uses

Via Creative Applications

-----

Created by ECAL‘s past and present students, DRM Chair provides a limited number of use before it self-destructs. A small sensor detects when someone sits and decrements a counter. Every time someone stands up, the chair knocks a number of time to signal how many uses are left. When reaching zero, the self-destruct system is turned on and the structural joints of the chair are melted.

The number of use was set to 8, so everyone could sit down and enjoy a single time the chair. The cast-wax block is embedded with nichrome wire, the sensor made with Arduino counts the people and number 8 is reached the system is turned on.

The project is an entry for thedeconstruction.org and made in 48 hours by Gianfranco Baechtold, Laurent Beirnaert, Pierre Bouvier, Thibault Brevet, Raphaël Constantin, Lionel Dalmazzini, Edina Desboeufs, Arthur Desmet and Thomas Grogan

More about the project here.

Related Links:

Personal comment:

And of course, we would be all delighted to buy such a product, and buy it expensive, several times, don't we?
-
I truly believe computers, information technologies and networks have brought a lot to society, have transformed it and will continue to do so in conjunction with other "forces". The good side of these changes are blogs of passionate people, projects like Wikipedia, shared knowledge, home/personal computers, open source and unbranded communities, connection to others, diversity, etc. We all love this.
But on the other side, there is also since the beginning of the industry a terrible business model that come along with computers, information technologies and networks that has done a lot of damage. It is the "this year we put a 12 on the box" business model. Sounds like an old model at the time of "clouds" but it is in fact the same model that is being revamped and improved. A model where you are kept captive of an ecosystem of services and products, where you have to pay many times for the same service or product, where you trade your personal data against services that you even don't know what they will become (Google just decided to shut down Reader after several other unilateral shut downs --they won't give you back your data though... which would be at least fair trade--, last year Pachube was sold to a private company, Sketchup just got sold, etc. & etc. the list is endless).
When computing could have become a solution to consume less matter, offer great services, be a truly horizontal system, it has evolved into one of the symbol of stupid consumerism and often shit content (how can it be that a 3 years old "brand new and wow computer" or a "smart smart phone" has no more value after three years and that it all end up in the trash like vulgar pieces of waste? How is it that I can just listen to my music on only 5 devices? How is it that I have to pay every year 2000$ to have access to bad updates of programs? etc.) This industry is now on the point to restore the "good old" pyramidal model (branded "clouds" are in fact highly centralized and pyramidal systems). That's bad.
I never liked the capitalist or the liberal economic model and when it come to its mix with the computing industry, I think it has produced one of the most stupid and wasteful model ever seen...
So, where do we go from now?