Subject:
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Re: A new way for geeks to move around
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.geek
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Date:
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Wed, 5 Dec 2001 02:20:09 GMT
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Viewed:
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217 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.geek, Mark Sandlin writes:
> http://www.howstuffworks.com/ginger.htm
The link I just got from CNN was interesting:
http://www.segway.com.edgesuite.net/consumer/home_flash.html
I am interested in the future applications of the self-balancing mechanism
used by the Segway, but the scooter itself is a product that few will buy.
This newfangled scooter is not more important than the internet nor is
likely to have cities built around its use. I could be wrong, but I doubt
it. The main reason this product will sink into oblivion is that it simply
fails to deliver on practically anything that it at first glance purports to
provide, and its hard to find ANY real need for this thing that one can't
more easily and readily answer with one's own two feet.
The Segway doesn't operate simply by leaning or "thinking" about moving in a
particular direction, it requires manual steering with the handlebars. Kamen
has said that it will displace the automobile, but the device is really more
geared towards replacing walking (probably more so for those who can't walk
on their own for some reason), or neither the automobile nor walking (and
therefore fails to find a truly needful market). Ease of use is probably
mitigated to an enormous degree by the Segway's own weight of 65-80 lbs.
The official website animation shows a woman at the top of a cement
staircase holding the thing with one hand and a backpack in the other, I
guess she's going to "bump" this thing down her front stairway to the
sidewalk. I have the funny idea this thing cannot take that kind of abuse
long-term, not with all of it's sensitive directional monitoring gear. No
mention is made of the device climbing the steeper hills of places like San
Francisco, or of the devices use over ice and snow. It was suggested at
first that the thing was incapable of falling over, but CNN words it much
more carefully by stating "...the scooter is difficult to fall from or knock
over..." No mention is made of hitting another pedestrian at 12-17 miles an
hour on "level ground."
Time has an article at
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,186660-4,00.html that
states: "No matter how inherently safe Segways may be, someone, somewhere is
going to kill himself on one."
Inventor Kamen probably just wanted to come up with some reason to justify
the invention of the balancing mechanism, sadly this scooter leaves him
looking like a deluded nut. To be fair, I am not sure to what degree he is
himself responsible for the hype surrounding his 'ginger," but he should at
least bear some responsibility for not cutting-off some of the more absurd
hype at a more incipient stage. Instead, I guess he just let different
investors and journalists pump him full of money for a piece of the action.
Obviously, he has more than his fair share of the P.T. Barnum gene.
I dunno, in the end I am more intrigued by the hype than the thing itself.
-- Hop-Frog
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: A new way for geeks to move around
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| (...) those who cannot walk on their own could probably not stand on the thing either :( (...) the cnn footage showed it climbing speed bump sized ramps without a hitch, but now i wonder, what's its battery life? (...) indeed. (...) From what I (...) (23 years ago, 5-Dec-01, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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