ABCNEWS' Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer joined inventor Dean Kamen for a ride on his new invention — the Segway Human Transporter. (ABCNEWS.com)
Posted on 12/03/2001 4:17:56 PM PST by spycatcher
ABCNEWS' Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer joined inventor Dean Kamen for a ride on his new invention — the Segway Human Transporter. (ABCNEWS.com)
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'IT' Gets Around
Mysterious Invention Moves People  N E W Y O R K, Dec. 3
— After nearly a year of speculation, Dean Kamen's mysterious machine — IT — was revealed on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. |
While Kamen's invention, the Segway Human Transporter, does move people, it doesn't leave the ground — and it's powered by a battery. The inventor revealed his two-wheeled personal transportation device, intended for a single standing rider, today on Good Morning America. "This is the world's first self-balancing human transporter," Kamen said. "You stand on this Segway Human Transporter and you think forward and then you go forward. If you think backward, you go backward." The transporter, which can go up to 12 miles an hour, looks more like a lawn mower than a scooter and has no brakes. It is designed to mimic the human body's ability to maintain its balance; riders control the speed and direction of the device simply by shifting their weight and using a manual turning mechanism on one of the handlebars. "All of the knowledge that went into knowing how to walk is transferred to this machine," Kamen said. "When you stand on this machine, it kind of walks for you. It just does it smoothly and gracefully." The 65-pound device, also known by its former code name, "Ginger," looks simple, but its inner workings are intricate. Tilt sensors monitor the rider's center of gravity more than 100 times a second, and are able to signal both the direction and the speed to the device's electric motor and wheels.
Kamen says the Segway can take its rider up to 15 miles on a six-hour charge from a regular wall socket. He bills it as an environmentally friendly alternative to cars, and expects that in the future the devices will replace the car in urban centers. The first models are expected to be available to consumers in about a year at a price of about $3,000, said Kamen. Source of Endless Speculation Kamen already has a series of high-profile inventions under his belt. He created a dialysis machine that is the size of a briefcase, a portable insulin pump and a wheelchair that climbs stairs, called iBot, which he had code-named "Fred." Word of IT first leaked out in January when the media learned that a publisher had paid a $250,000 advance for a book about a device by Kamen the editor said could transform our lives, our cities and our thinking. That sparked off a media frenzy — and the guessing game. But the high-powered innovators and thinkers Kamen showed his invention to — including technology heavyweights Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos and Apple CEO Steve Jobs — remained tight-lipped. Bob Metcalf, a computer engineer who helped create the building blocks for the Internet, revealed a few details to ABCNEWS about Kamen's invention nearly a year before IT was revealed. "I've seen it, and it is… more important than pantyhose and it's more important than the Internet," said Metcalf in an interview in January. He said that on a scale of one to 10 — one being mundane and 10 being revolutionary — he would rank Kamen's invention "in the high nines." He implied that the device would contain a computer chip, that it may have to do with transportation, and that people would probably want to own more than one. Kamen, who kept his invention a secret in the face of mass speculation, said his silence was not part of a plan to build public interest. When information about his invention was leaked, he still had to file hundreds of patent claims. "We always work on our confidential projects confidentially," Kamen said. "Unfortunately, somebody in their excitement let the world know what we were working on a year ago and we weren't ready." The United States Postal Service and the National Park Service have plans to field test a number of the personal transportation devices next year. "We've got a quarter of a million letter carriers out on the street," said John Nolan, the deputy postmaster general, "and we've got the opportunity to increase efficiency reduce the wear and tear on their bodies and improve the environment all the same time." But will it transform lives, cities and even thinking, as first hyped in the media? Futurists who considered themselves skeptics were initially impressed. "This is a marvelous first device," said Paul Saffo, the director of the Institute for the Future. "It remains open to see if it's going to grow up and go out into the world at large, but it's clearly gotten far enough to be practical in places like warehouses and industrial campuses." There does seem to be a clear consensus: It is a bold attempt to not just reinvent the wheel but to reinvent the ways wheels can be used. ABCNEWS' Antonio Mora contributed to this report. |
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No! It's the urban idiot tree hugging liberal vehicle. Be honest. Would you be caught dead on this thing? I wouldn't.
FYI, I'll explain how it works for you before you go making a fool of yourself. Special Forces are in all the branches of the military, which all fall under the Dept of Defense. There all have procurement people that evaluate promising technology for them to use. Anyone in or out of the military should know that. No need to point out imagined "discrepancies" to make yourself look petty.
Sorry bro...but you said the Special Forces were interested.
Department of Defense procurement poags are not the same thing.
They were your words....not Time's.
2) I figured you would catch my error in my over simplification. If the balance wheel's rake is perpendicular to the ground, unless the wheel is turned in the direction you're rotating, it will just drag, however, if you introduce a bit of rake (think chopper) then the wheel will pivot on its own in the correct direction. On a car it's called caster and is the reason your steering wheel returns to the center when you make a turn, providing the alignment is correct.
3) This monstrous "appendage" can be replaced with something you probably use every week, a castor. Best known as the wobbling front wheels of a shopping cart. What are they, maybe an inch longer than the diameter of the wheel itself?
4) Before you mention it, if you only used one caster and you leaned into the direction opposite the castor, you'd fall over so you put one on the front and one on the back and hopefully make them of better quality materials than the ones on the shopping carts I always seem to always pick.
5) The ability to turn in its own radius is worth $3000?
6) I'm not knocking the impressive technology but it seems a waste for what is in essence a scooter, albeit one you stand up on.
Stay Safe !
The only people in DoD who will approve purchases for Special Forces are those dedicated to Special Forces procurement. In this case, few people were allowed to see the device and quantities are limited, so DoD most likely sent *only* representatives from Special Forces procurement.
The Special Forces are interested in almost anything - high or low tech -- that helps them move and do their job. Quiet is preferable to noisy. Horses, skis, motorcycles and obviously a future military version of this. I don't know how that would surprise anyone that's ever worn a uniform.
Put it this way, if our SpecOps people weren't interested in stuff like this, they would be no better than Marine grunts.
It's not perfect, but neither was the Wright Bros plane, or the first bike with a motor on it. This is much more advanced and now other companies will try to copy and improve on the design. Future versions from DEKA will probably have sterling engines for added power and range
~smile~
Well well...
Now I see...
...you are a Liberal bed wetter arent you?
Hahaha...
I had just taken for granted that you were honestly off base but no....you are a sap cakeboy huh?
How foolish of me to have been believing the best...that you were simply a weak minded conservative who had been duped by Mr. Kaymen [a professed enviromentalist and democrat] and the likes of Time magazine & ABC's Good Morning America.
Perhaps you could show us all the virtuous pros of being a blowhard putz who weaves in and out of his skewed language bent on driving home the endless possibilities of a liberal fantasy versus one of the US Marines attached to the 15 MEU/SOC [Grunts] currently positioned outside of Kandahar Risking their lives to defend our nation?
:o)
Those little $50 scooters you can buy at the drug store are "cooler" than this thing and problably a lot safer. And you don't have to recharge them. You just stop and have a hamburger and it's refueled.
This is not the "steamship" Mr. Fulton. This is not the wheel being reinvented. This is a piece of crap that is getting a lot of media hype. This is a pet rock on wheels. When it blows over it will be as dead as Enron.
Who you callin' "nobody", son?
I've got a bad knee, bad ankles, bad back, bad neck, and bad heart. Walking is something I do when I have to, as little as I have to, and I generally regret it, and pay for it in pain, exhaustion, and sweat. Running is something I do if life depends on it (or when my wife yells that her purse has been stolen in the store-mart), and I do pay for it, in spades.
Could I use one of these "toys"? Damn straight I could. It could put the fun back into hunting and fishing. Enough, in fact, that I'd start hunting and fishing again. It could also take the hell out of going to my barn, or my garden.
I can't quite get a handle on the amount of venom I'm seeing in the "ginger" threads. It's strange. I mean, I'd expect a certain amount of "I'd like one", and "I can't see how I'd need one", but the amount of sheer bile expressed here is astounding.
Remind me never to share any ideas I've got for products or services here, OK?
I just dont see it having a great big affect on my earning capacity, relationships, ability to find a good deal on material items or stay informed or share my opinion or research a paper.....like oh..say, the internet has.
Global reach, global destruction
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Is this "IT?" A two-wheeled, battery powered transportation device, known as the Segway Human Transporter, is displayed at a studio in New York on Dec. 3. (Peter Morgan/Reuters)