The Hop! is pretty cool. It’s a compressed air-powered piece of luggage that has a set of caterpillar tracks, and is able to follow you around the airport. It locks onto your cellphone signal and triangulates its position and then attempts to remain at a fixed distance from you. If it fails at this and “gets lost”, the suitcase locks itself down and your phone vibrates to alert you. It’s called The Hop! because it’s supposed to remind you of a bellhop.

We can foresee a couple of problems with this, not the least of which is the presence of electronics that could intrigue the very competent TSA agents. And the fact that you won’t really be able to say that your luggage was “with you” at all times. And also, well, it’s not a product you can purchase at the moment. It’s a concept and one working prototype, but there’s no other info.

Hit the jump for a video of the herky-jerky machine and links.

hop! the following suitcase from rodrigo garcía on Vimeo.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ SlashGear ]