Skip to main content

Tired of dragging your suitcase upstairs? Try the TraxPack instead

TraxPack_Original
If lugging your luggage around always puts a damper on your otherwise delightful travel plans, we may have finally found the suitcase for you. Say goodbye to the days of trying to make your way up and down stairs with a heavy suitcase in tow, and hello to the TraxPack. A smart bag that features what the manufacturer describes as “tank tracks,” similar to those you might find on a military tank, this suitcase won’t necessarily protect you in battle, but if you’re fighting a long flight of steps, you’re going to want TraxPack on your side. Branded as “a new kind of suitcase that deploys a track system … to effortlessly roll up stairs,” this piece of luggage’s mission is “to make travel safe, secure, and smooth.”

With its tilting handle, TraxPack claims to give travelers the ultimate in maneuverability and “full control over your luggage.” No matter how you twist or turn it, you’ll be able to take TraxPack along for the ride thanks to its “dynamic self-adjusting track system.”

Explaining the genesis of the new luggage concept, TraxPack co-founder Naisha Joseph said, “I had issues from losing my bag to having to carry a heavy bag up a broken escalator, incurring unexpected fees at the gate, my phone would be dead (and) I couldn’t make any calls — I had all these issues.” And luckily, TraxPack addresses all of them.

Not only does this piece of luggage purport to get you up and down stairs better than before, it also features a GPS tracking system, a built-in weight scale, USB charging docks, and TSA-approved locks and extra-strong zippers. Basically, every travel woe you’ve ever encountered should be addressed by the $515 suitcase.

With 51 days to go, the TraxPack team has raised just over $7,000, and is hoping to hit $65,000 over the next month and a half. So if you’re interested in a new kind of suitcase, you can jump on the early-bird price of $198 on their Kickstarter campaign. 

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Read more