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'IT' Revealed. Self-Balancing People Mover (My title: Electric Scooter with gyros)
Drudge ^
| 12-02-01
| Drudge
Posted on 12/02/2001 5:00:19 PM PST by Timm
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A fascinating new technology that almost certainly won't sell outside of a small niche in the consumer market.
In case any of the inventor's claims sound familiar, it's because they mirror the claims made by hopeful city planners over the past three decades. Any minute now, we've been told, cities would wake up and ban cars from city centers and make everyone walk, ride a bike, or take a bus.
Whatever it is you think of such planning schemes, the important point for present purposes is that the reason these things have not yet happened is not that planners said, "yeah, it would be a really great idea to close off city centers to car traffic. The problem is people will just keep falling off their scooters. If only there were a way to prevent that..."
We already have bikes, busses, running shoes, and scooters. Now that we have slow scooters you can't fall off of-- for only $3,000 plus electricity and maintenance--I wouldn't expect things to change very much.
Is there anyone out there interested in an alternative to sitting in a car in a city? Try a plain old bike. Despite what you might think, cycling on a plain old bicycle on public roads is safer per hour than driving a car. No, you can't carry a whole lot on one, but if you just want to get yourself from A to B without parking and other problems you probably already have an alternative in your garage.
1
posted on
12/02/2001 5:00:20 PM PST
by
Timm
To: Timm
No offense man, but there are like 3 threads about this. Let the search feature be your friend.
2
posted on
12/02/2001 5:04:57 PM PST
by
Semper911
To: Timm
Today where I live it was drizzing all day and about 40 degrees. Yeah, I'm going to trade my nice warm car in on a $3,000 scooter. When monkeys fly out of my butt.
To: Timm
Pure hype. Here today, gone tomorrow. Wow, I can't wait to scoot around town on a gyro balanced scooter. Wait a minute, I already can scoot around town on a non-gyro balanced, gas or electric motor scooter. So why is nobody doing it now other that a handful of teenage boys? Because it is not practical, that's why. What a joke. Leave it to Time magazine.
4
posted on
12/02/2001 5:06:28 PM PST
by
CdMGuy
To: Timm
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.
VAAAGGGUUUEEE!!!
Can anyone else make sense of that description?
5
posted on
12/02/2001 5:08:31 PM PST
by
ijk
To: Timm
"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 townConsidering my car only weighs 3200 lbs and I get to listen to the radio while driving, makes perfect sense to me to haul my tail around town in it rather than your enviromentally friendly scooter. Can it go over 80? Wouldn't want it anyway. Just another enviro-whacko friendly device brought to you by the 'save the ozone' nuts
6
posted on
12/02/2001 5:11:17 PM PST
by
billbears
To: Bubba_Leroy
Today where I live it was drizzing all day and about 40 degrees Yup. And where I live, temps were in the single digits last weekend. Plus, I have three kids and a wife. I can just see us trailing along like a herd of ducks on our scooters.
Like it or not, cities are always going to need car-sized streets, because there are plenty of uses for cars and trucks, and only one use for a scooter.
7
posted on
12/02/2001 5:13:41 PM PST
by
r9etb
To: Semper911
If you have the links to those threads provide them. I haven't seen this extensive of a post yet. Perhaps you have.
To: Timm
YAWN. Drudge swallowed the hype BIGTIME on this one.
To: r9etb
I have three kids and a wife. I can just see us trailing along like a herd of ducks on our scooters. **********
Pretty funny!
Actually, I was more excited about his other invention which makes steps and other obstacles accessible to handicapped people. I could definitely see all sorts of advantages to supplying abunch of those at the street sides of many buildings INSTEAD OF spending tens of billions of dollars buuilding ramps. Or the super-expensive "kneeler" buses which I think are used somewhere in Florida which cost about $100,000 more than a regular bus, just so a guy in a wheelchair can roll in. Obviously it would have been cheaper to buy every handicapped a free taxi ride for the rest of their lives.
To: Timm
This should be interesting. It may be a flop. It may not. The technology is interesting. We shall see. I'm not convinced it will be the hit they thought it would be. But I'm not convinced it won't make them a lot of money either.
To: Timm
As Chris Farley might say if he were still alive,"Well la-dee frikkin da." I thought it was some kinda of fuel cell, but noooo! Its a scooter. The scooter fad already came and went.
To: DoughtyOne
To: Timm
This invention is idiotic! This is hype to try to raise money for something that doesnt work. A brilliant invention goes right on the market and starts selling right away. This is a hoax.
14
posted on
12/02/2001 5:25:42 PM PST
by
Fred25
To: billbears
It's not "brought to you" by anyone other than a guy who invented a kidney dialysis machine. Is that a liberal-wacko invention?
I'm not saying the hype is deserved, but you can be more intelligent in your criticism than labelling anything you don't like as "Leftist."
You MIGHT be correct that some nutjobs will use it to harp on their pet issues, but that's not the same as saying the inventor saying we should revert to a pre-industrial age.
15
posted on
12/02/2001 5:30:15 PM PST
by
Skywalk
To: Timm
Hmm - cars banned from downtown areas - forcing people to buy his thing (or else - do a controlled fall on your own two feet). I can envision the huge parking lots outside of downtown where you swap your car for IT. this dude becomes richer than Bill Gates...is he a Dem? Oh no! If so they will fight like hell to get laws passed to pave the way for this thing. Then of course he will make huge contributions to the Democratic party, money that was squeezed out of the public. I think one of these could be useful in a industrial setting but PLEASE lets keep them off the sidewalks.
To: Timm
Wonder what the reason is for the phonetic spelling of 'segue'?
To: Fred25
"This invention is idiotic! This is hype to try to raise money for something that doesnt work. A brilliant invention goes right on the market and starts selling right away. This is a hoax."
BWAHAHAHA!! There is something idiotic here, all right--it isn't the invention, but your commentary. Obviously you don't know anything about the process of inventing and marketing. NOTHING "goes right on the market and starts selling right away". Since he already has a working model that people have ridden, it's hard to see how it can be a hoax.
To: Timm
"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."Guess this shmo Kamen hasn't thought out what would happen to somebody riding the 'segway' (sic) at International Falls with 4" of snow and ice on the ground @ 10 below with 40mph wind gusts.
To: Timm
Is this the same gizmo that was on South Park a couple weeks ago? In fact, I thought they called it, "IT." It was for a single person, balanced by gyros, ran on batteries, but had a dildo-type apendage that the person sat on, etc. It was to go about 300-400 mph and compete against the commercial airline companies.
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