There is no way in hell this will EVER be adopted by a single airline.
You can easily see from the diagram that the required spacing between rows is much wider than the 16% admitted in the article. No way that airlines are going to remove rows of income-producing seats to accommodate this design. Why would they purposely lose money? Nice idea, but economically not sound. You have to design something that MAKES the airline money if you want them to change.

It will require a redesign of the roof of the airplane as well. It will have to carry the dynamic load of the passengers.

I remember the competition for a durable, fire-safe upholstry material for the existing seats. Nylon was among those not chosen.

What a load of codswallop. From the drawing I'd estimate he has a seat pitch of about 55 inches. Typical Kattle Klass is 33 inches.
Not only that, but the volumetric efficiency of the individual overhead bins is bound to be less than for one large bin.
If some genius could com up with a seat that gave more room, (for example a tubular frame with thin webbing, like the Aeron office chair), the airlines would immediately adopt it and reduce the pitch by an amount equal to the saving.
If I were this engineering student's professor I'd flunk him, not give him a prize, for failing to consider the basic needs of the client, i.e. the airlines.

Don't forget about the arms holding the tray and TV. Would have to find a way to make them instantly and automatically retractable in the case of turbulence or worse. Otherwise you're dealing with some pretty dangerous clubs.

Seems as aisle access, either routine or in an emergency, could be problematic with all of that hanging hardware.

Sounded really interesting until I got to this line;
" ...and only needs 16 percent more space than a conventional Economy Class seat..."
That means less passengers. Quite a lot less.
These few inches/cm they keep carving off economy space are all about fitting in just a few extra passengers.

The video that is supposed to introduce the seat is completely senseless. It provides no information whatsoever on the seat. It's an animation of which 90% deals with showing the frustration of passengers in the current economy class setup. What a waste of time.

This design seems more interested in solving the entertainment problem than solving the seating problem.
Offsetting the seats with each other would bring the shoulder and arm room that is missing. They could be mounted on the diagonal. to provide the space.
Bill

It seems the above comments are overly critical and are simply rubbish what is not a bad idea (the need to improve economy seating and provide more flexibility.
Whilst it is a challenge that the seats require more space, airline that adopt this model MIGHT be able to charge 16% more to recoup the cost. On and LHR - MAD flight that would as little as an extra £15 which I would surely pay.
There is also something to be said around weight. Current seats weigh as much as 20kg each. If these are less than that which in theory they may, the fuel saving might offset the reduced seats.
The idea is interesting and certainly merits further consideration.