Segways go on sale. No need to walk ever again

BikeBiz.co.uk ^ | 11/18/2002 | By Carlton Reid

[man from mars]

As revealed on US breakfast telly this morning, Dean Kamen's Segway< is on sale from today via the Amazon 'early adoptors' club. Delivery is US-only and your $4950 machine actually ships in March at the earliest (although in a bid for even more publicity, 30 consumers will be hand-picked to receive their Segways before Christmas).

[meyer]

Now tell me, how does this guy wipe his a** after taking a dump?

I suspect that he utilizes the services of whoever is nearby for his "dirty" work.

[godghelpus]

I have ridden one a couple of times. They have an inherently high "neat" factor and I am sure that they are going to be useful in certain jobs (amusement parks, large warehouses, trade shows, etc). It was very easy to ride. I was around a couple for 3 days and saw probably 300 people ride them. I personally only saw one person have any trouble at all.

[Luis Gonzalez]

They'll be fighting over who gets the right-of-way in those bike paths soon.

[godghelpus]

I am sure it is coming! They get moving pretty quickly on firm ground, so they may get the hole shot over a lot of bicycles and rollerbladers. I can't see riding one to work but if I could rent one at the zoo or Disney, et al, I would probably try it out for the day.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Think NYC messenger services.

[meyer]

I am sure it is coming! They get moving pretty quickly on firm ground, so they may get the hole shot over a lot of bicycles and rollerbladers. I can't see riding one to work but if I could rent one at the zoo or Disney, et al, I would probably try it out for the day.

It might be interesting to watch from a distance if these things become popular and try to take the pathway away from the bicyclists and bladers. Judging from its top speed and range, any cyclists that are forced off the road by a segway rider will have ample time to retaliate.

[weegee]

Dean Kamen's dad is illustrator/comic book artist Jack Kamen who worked at EC Comics in the 1950s. He was there when the first issue of Mad came out with a story titled, "Blobs" (written by Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated by Wally Wood). Set in the future, everyone moves around in motored carts. Every need is met, muscles don't work, and they have become fleshy blobs.

Looks like we are on our way.

[Tweak]

All Suckway riders are hereby invited over to my place to ride on the lawn.

Please use your grasscatcher attachment, steer around the dogpiles, and bag your clippings.

Thanks.

[manfromlamancha]

I am going to buy one and pull a Forest Gump across the Country. I am far to lazy to run.

[supercat]

And true enough we don't know "what went on before the cameras were turned on" but I don't think they had anything to gain, they weren't selling them.

A bigger question in my mind is what constitutes "mastery". I'm sure the training environment was carefully configured so and the training carefully scripted as to make the device look good. Any obstacles the device would have to overcome were probably deliberately chosen so as to be as large as possible while being within the device's ability to handle smoothly.

Really, there are many skills for which 90% mastery is both fairly easy and quite useless. If one scripts a demo so as to avoid the "hard" 10%, such skills can be made to look easy. Anyone who tries them in the real world, however, will discover that the 10% is tough.

[Darlin']

FOFLOL. Yeah but that final 10% is usually the goodest part. I take it you don't plan to get one any time soon.

[supercat]

there's no way for this thing to tell the difference between a deliberate body tilt and the result of being hit by the wind.

Telling the difference between deliberate body tilt versus being blown by the wind probably isn't too hard given the separate attitude sensors on the platform and control stick.

A bigger problem is what to do about it. If the wind starts pushing a person's center of gravity rearward at 2mph, one of three things must happen:

• The machine moves the wheels rearward at 2mph to keep them under the center of gravity; the machine must keep doing this until the wind subsides.
• The machine moves the wheels rearward at over 2mph to get them behind the center of gravity. At that point the person would tip forward except that the forward-leaning moment is offset by the rearward moment produced by the wind.
• The person falls backward.

One of the problems I see with the machine is that it is not statically stable. Perhaps the machine can manage #2 above effectively enough to minimize 'wander', but the level of mobility required would still be significant. If you are standing still on the machine and get hit by a gust of wind, there may be no way for the machine to avoid having to very rapidly and without warning move back six inches or more (if the machine hesitates before moving, or moves slowly, the required distance would be much longer).

Frankly, I don't like the idea of a pedestrian craft which would have to move without warning in order to maintain stability.

[supercat]

Yeah but that final 10% is usually the goodest part. I take it you don't plan to get one any time soon.

How useful would a 100 mile road be if in the middle there were a 10.6 foot-wide by thirty-foot deep ditch? A road which is 99.998% usable should be just about as useful as one that's 100% usable, right?

A device which can handle 90% of the tasks a car can do, but which can't handle 10% of the tasks that require a car, doesn't seem very useful unless it can do many of the 90% of tasks much better than a car. The Segway just plain isn't there.

[Bush2000]

I still have no idea why anyone would buy something like this.

It's a solution in search of a market. I predict that they won't sell many of them.

[Darlin']

Fine.

[driftless]

I work for the U.S. Postal Service, and I guarantee that the carriers are worried. An average carrier can only walk several miles an hour with his cart. A carrier on a walking route could complete his rounds in at least half the time. These things go much faster and I have already been tested for postal use in my district. Even if they have to purchase several new ones a year, remember an average carrier is making yearly ten times what it costs for a new Segway. I see more potential for commercial use than other uses.

[yonif]

Seqway technologically, looks very interesting. I wouldn't mind using one to ease my walking while passing out pro-war on Iraq and pro-Israel flyers at my school.

[js1138]

A bigger problem is what to do about it. If the wind starts pushing a person's center of gravity rearward at 2mph, one of three things must happen:

I think there are more than three possibilities. One possibility is to exert the force necessary to keep the person upright without moving forward or bckward. How would the device know when and how to do this -- by monitoring the hand grip and foot pressure. It would be possible to tell the difference between the intention to move and being pushed off balance. This thing was in development for years, and the creators are not stupid.

[airborne]

Speaking as someone in a wheelchair... NO!

[js1138]

It's a solution in search of a market. I predict that they won't sell many of them.

they will be outselling Macs within 4 years.