A drone that blares a “closing” song will soon hover above employees who work late in Japan, forcing them to go home and finally give themselves
Unveiled on December 7, “T-Frend” will buzz over late-working employees and blast “Auld Lang Syne,” a Scottish tune used in Japan to announce that a store is closing. Developed by Blue Innovation with office security firm Taisei and telco operator NTT East, the drone comes with a camera that enables real-time monitoring from a remote location.
It also knows where it is even without GPS, taking off to fly on a pre-set path and returning by itself.
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Norihiro Kato, director at Taisei, told AFP (via Japan Today): “You can’t really work when you think ‘it’s coming over any time now,’ and hear ‘Auld Lang Syne’ along with the buzz.”
T-Frend has no official price tag yet, but Kato noted a “target” of around 500,000 yen ($4,500) per month.
Interestingly, developers are also thinking about packing T-Frend with facial recognition technology so that it can tell who’s still working after certain hours and identify possible intruders.
Dentsu, the deceased employee’s company, started implementing a “lights out, no work policy” from 10:00 P.M. in October 2016. Others have effected bans from 7:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., The Japan Times noted.