this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2025
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Whether big or small. We all have that one thing from Scifi we wished were real. I'd love to see a cool underground city with like a SkyDome or a space hotel for instance.

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[–] Deconceptualist@leminal.space 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

How about a machine that can fold your laundry after it's washed and dried?

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We're so close. My dryer turns all my stuff inside out. I feel like if it can do that, it can fold the stuff too...

[–] arararagi@ani.social 1 points 1 day ago

Damn, never heard that machines could do that already.

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C76osXtpLeM

someone was working on one years ago and it seems to never have come to market

[–] Deconceptualist@leminal.space 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

That's really cool, thanks. I always wondered what such a contraption would look like. Too bad it didn't make it to market.

The real sci-fi dream is to have a machine that can take a bin of totally unsorted laundry (everything from socks to bedsheets), then wash, dry, and fold it all into a basket. I don't know if that could be done without some very human-like arms and better AI than we have today.

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 1 points 16 hours ago

for complex tasks like laundry I wonder if material recycling and on-demand manufacturing will advance far enough first that we end up "3d printing" (or Star Trek replicating) clothes and then just tossing dirty ones into a material recycling system, well before we have the tech to make a robot wash them haha

[–] dovah@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Wikipedia says they closed down in 2021, but I'm also seeing this with updates as recent as this year: [link removed]

Edit: I removed the link. There are a bunch of really legit looking Foldimate websites and they are all scams.

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 3 points 22 hours ago

such a bummer. this would have been a huge win for those with dexterity/mobility issues. i bet some laundromats would have purchased some also, which could have potentially decreased the price of wash & fold service (or they may have even made some available to be rented by customers to use themselves inside the laundromat)