[John Jorsett]

Does anyone know what is going to POWER this thing? Another article said something about the patent including verbiage alluding to "fuel-air ratio," which would seem to indicate internal combustion.

There's been a lot of discussion around a Stirling engine, which is external combustion. I haven't verified it for myself, but some people have said that Kamen has taken out one or more patents regarding Stirling technology. It's an attractive idea: pour some cheap brandy or distillations from fermented lawn clippings into your tank and head on out.

[hadit2here]

Hmmm, seems from what little I've read so far, the "power" only needs to be something like a battery, which will "power" the chips/software/sensors, which control the gyros. If you allow the thing to start to "fall" forward, and then compensate to keep it from "falling", which is then translated into "motion", as we do when walking/running, very little "power" would be required, as gravity is sorta being used as the main propulsive power. That is, lean forward and gravity is pulling you "down" in a fall, but you counter that by putting your foot forward, imparting forward motion. Repeating this creates continuiing motion.

Course, so far, it seems that there would have to be some "power" to provide the movement is used to counter the fall.

All sorts of interesting speculation, most without real facts. Will be interesting to see what it actually does. But I tend to agree that the underlying technology will actually be the revolution, not the "scooter" itself.

Cancha just imagine the "scooter" it would take for the FedEx/UPS guy to take the load of boxes/packages and deliver them 10-20 miles from the distribution center? Ummmm, I think the "revolution" in that would be the massive change it would take to make the distribution process accomodate the "scooter" method of delivery... industrial strength scooters or not.

I saw a cartoon of what would be required for a cowboy to ride a horse of OSHA wrote the regulations. I seriously doubt that the licensing [functional operating worthiness, license plate, license tabs], safety requirements [air bags, seat belts, helmets, etc.], operator licensing [competence tests, fingerprints/retina scans, age limits, visual requirements, physical requirements, etc., etc.], environmental elements [freezing cold, rain, snow, obstacles, winds, etc., etc.] will make this tremendously viable method of transportation.

The ideal place for something like this would be enclosed malls, enclosed or protected areas of the cities [Las Vegas' covered street comes to mind], Disneyland/World, and those type of environments. For some reason, I just can't see this thing (scooter) working in winter Minnesota, rain soaked Seattle or Rural Anywhere. Having ridden motorcycles for years, I don't see that many motorcycles being used for massive transportation errands, even in moderate weather/terrains. Why would anyone want to submit themselves to unpredictable and hostile environmental elements with this thing? Doubt they will.

But the very first thing that popped into my head reading about the "balance/motive" part of this thing, I could see many uses in the space/aircraft industries, and in many other things that don't necessarily have anything to do with moving a "human". So maybe the underlying technology may be like the internet: something so simply innocuous and "simple" that virtually nobody could dream of the impact it has made on the world and the economy.

Isn't that pretty much how it usually works? Somebody comes up with an idea, and then serendipitously it is transformed into a world transforming technology- which nobody would have ever predicted.

Will be interesting to watch over the next few years.