please excuse me for posting a non-badminton thread but something profound as an invention that could re-shape how we get around is worth sharing with other people. (hey,kwun, i'm only attracting more audience to this forum) on the eve of the official announcement, here is the sneak preview of this invention. No, it won't make us fly but it is a first step. Just let u know that steve job, and ceo of amazon have personally invested million in this invention. here goes: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'IT' REVEALED; 'SEGWAY' SELF-BALANCING PEOPLE MOVER, BILLED AS ALTERNATIVE TO CARS After months of hype, an inventor is set to unveil an electric scooter being billed as an environmentally friendly alternative to cars. Dean Kamen's long-awaited, secret invention, the Segway "will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy," he tells TIME on the eve of his product's unveiling. Kamen imagines them everywhere: in parks and at Disneyland, on battlefields and factory floors, but especially on downtown sidewalks from Seattle to Shanghai. "Cars are great for going long distances," Kamen says, "but it makes no sense at all for people in cities to use a 4,000-lb. piece of metal to haul their 150-lb asses around town." In the future he envisions, cars will be banished from urban centers to make room for millions of "empowered pedestrians" - empowered, naturally, by Kamen's brainchild, reports John Heilemann in next week's issue. The invention is set to be unveiled Monday morning during ABC's GOOD MORNING AMERICA. MORE The Segway is a self-balancing people mover - powered by batteries and controlled by tilt-sensors and five solid state gyroscopes - that looks like a rotary lawnmower. The magic is in the balancing act ð no matter how hard you try, it won't let you fall. For the past three months, Kamen allowed TIME behind the veil of secrecy as he and his team grappled with the questions that they will confront - about everything from safety and pricing to the challenges of launching a product with the country at war and the economy in recession. There is no denying that the Segway, previously code-named "IT" and "Ginger," is an engineering marvel, reports Heilemann, who rode on the machine many times. Developed at a cost of more than $100 million, Kamenis vehicle is a complex bundle of hardware and software that mimics the human bodyis ability to maintain its balance. Not only does it have no brakes, but also no engine, no throttle, no gearshift, and no steering wheel. And it can carry the average rider for a full day, nonstop, on only five cents' worth of electricity. Kamen explains how the Segway works: "When you walk, youire really in whatis called a controlled fall. You off-balance yourself, putting one foot in front of the other and falling onto them over and over again. In the same way, when you use a Segway, thereis a gyroscope that acts like your inner ear, a computer that acts like your brain, motors that act like your muscles, wheels that act like your feet. Suddenly, you feel like you have on a pair of magic sneakers, and instead of falling forward, you go sailing across the room." As Kamen and his team were working on the IBOT wheelchair ð a six-wheel machine that goes up and down curbs, cruises effortlessly through sand or gravel, and climbs stairs - it dawned on them that they were onto something bigger. "We realized we could build a device using very similar technology that could impact how everybody gets around," he says. The IBOT was also the source of Gingeris mysterious codename. "Watching the IBOT, we used to say, ÈLook at that light, graceful robot, dancing up the stairsiÐso we started referring to it as Fred Upstairs, after Fred Astaire," Kamen recalls. "After we built Fred, it was only natural to name its smaller partner Ginger." With Ginger, as with the IBOT, Kamen explains, "the big idea is to put a human being into a system where the machine acts an extension of your body." With the Segway, Kamen plans to change the world by changing how cities are organized. To Kamenis way of thinking, the problem is the automobile. "Cities need cars like fish need bicycles," he says. Segways, he believes, are ideal for downtown transportation. Unlike cars, they are cheap, clean, efficient, maneuverable. Unlike bicycles, they are designed specifically to be pedestrian friendly. "A bike is too slow and light to mix with trucks in the street but too large and fast to mix with pedestrians on the sidewalk," he argues. "Our machine is compatible with the sidewalk. If a Segway hits you, itis like being hit by another pedestrian." Ordinary consumers wonit be able to buy Segways for at least a year, a consumer model is expected to go on sale for about $3,000, Heilemann reports. For now, the first customers will be deep-pocketed institutions such as the U.S. Postal Service and General Electric, the National Parks Service and Amazon.comÐ institutions capable of shelling out $8,000 apiece for industrial-strength models. TIME also takes a hard look at the question of whether this product will really make it in the consumer market. "The consumer market is always harder," Intel chairman Andy Grove, who also rode the Segway, told Heilemann. "But when you think about it, the corporate market is almost unlimited. If the Postal Service and FedEx deploy this for all their carriers, the company will be busy for the next five years just keeping up with that demand."
Wow, this must be the disappointment of the year. I was kind of expecting something REALLY cool... "Bigger than the Internet"... yeah right. It's gonna end up on the dump with the color faxes and smell-TV.
Cooler, I read this article over a year ago, how come its re-surfacing only now ?? I have no access to US TV programs in Singapore but I have seen the so-called 'invention' at the US Patents Office patents filing. Like Mag, I thought it was 'rubbish' too .... Its only line drawings from files at the Patents Office so I suppose the actual thing is nothing far off from it? Its more like a man standing atop a self-balancing 2 wheeled pedestal ? You can see the patent by searching under the inventor's name. Seems crap to me. Dunno about you people.
mag & gladius, you guys have good points. But like any other invention, it could be a seed to another innovation down the road. Look at steve job first PC built from his gargage, back then everybody think of it as another powerful calculator. Yes, i agreed it was a bit overhyped. This is the american style though. Yes, i have seen the line drawing from the patent but the inventor had many previous patents attached to this latest patent so details of previous patents are not reprinted. There are many famous quotes from famous people that have underestimated new inventon too but i lost that email. Some i remembered are. Bill Gates " 64KB is all the memory a computer ever needed. ? person ? "It is silly to think PC in every home. Well, i apologize if i had raised any false hope to readers here.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/p/ap/20011203/bs/1007389819secret_invention_nyr101.html http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/p/nm/20011203/tc/mdf94885.html Inventor Dean Kamen demonstrates his Segway Human Transporter, a one-person, battery-powered scooter, Monday, Dec. 3, 2001, in New York. The device, which travels at a top speed of about 17 miles per hour, uses gyroscopes to keep it upright and discern where the rider wants to go. (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano) ------------------------------------------- at 3000$US, it is a bit pricey as compared to a conventional motorized scooter but it is self balancing.
yeah, i got caught with the promotional hype. It is a neat invention but its lasting power is still to be seen. For an invention to prosper, it must be technological advance and priced competitively. At 3000 USD, i don't think it is affordable at consumer level yet. Maybe i'll wait for its clones to show up.
I saw these things on tv yesterday and they do indeed look pretty cool. I think they do have a realistic chance of becoming a major form of urban transportation if their price drops like the price of cd players dropped. At $3000 when they first came out, no one but audiophiles wanted one, but when they came down to the under $400 consumer price range, everyone bought several. One problem with the devices is that they may take up a bit of space to store during the day that may not be all that readily available in a crowded big city.
Just think of it this way...I wouldn't want to be on one of those things during the winter. I like my warm and comfy car quite nicely.
Another favorable factor is the industrial model intended for travel around large factory floors, or even around an industrial plant site. The Exxon refinery in Baton Rouge, LA has used bikes for years, but could very well give these new vehicles a try. If they prove practical, they might follow the course of other technology and move from the industrial/professional market into broad distribution in the consumer market. Examples: hand-held electric drill, most other consumer power tools, multi-function calculators [an engineer proudly showed me his $800 HP back in 1975], telephones [early phone companies instructed home users to keep conversations short "to avoid tying up the lines needed for important business calls].
Marshall, you reminded me of a story one of my friends told me. In the late 1970's, one of his classmates (a very spoiled, well off kid) came to school one day with a new Omega digital watch (one of the very first digital watches anyone had seen), which he boasted cost $1,800. This was at the dawn of the digital age, so this Omega had a red LED display, was about an inch high and double the size of a normal watch and displayed only time. Six or eight months later all the other kids in class had Texas Instruments or Timex digital watches with more features that cost only $30. Heck, remember the scooter craze from last year? The damn things were selling for $100-150 last Christmas and are going as low as $15 now.
good points, however, from 1800$ to 30$ digital watches in 6 -8 months is a bit too quick. I think u meant 6-8 years. Yah, those LED digital watch remined me of a joke where this mountain climber asked his partner for the time, and his partner had to free up one hand to push the watch button for the time. Well, gravity had pulled them down to earth.
Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. engineer Yoshihiro Kawarazaki arrives by Toyota's new motorized ride 'Winglet' he has been developing during a press conference in Tokyo Friday, Aug. 1, 2008. Toyota will start testing the stand-up-and-ride contraption, that travels at up to 6 kph (3.7 mph), later this year at a Japanese airport and resort complex and next year at a shopping mall to get feedback from people. No plans are set to sell the Winglet as a commercial product
