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Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, has been working on much more functional prosthetics. He named his bionic arm "Luke", an obvious reference we can all appreciate. Demos of it look pretty amazing. Here's the official page for it: http://www.dekaresearch.com/deka_arm.shtml Also google "Kamen Luke Arm" and you find lots of pix, vids and articles about it.

The implied innovation (that keeps coming up in these "iPhone and other smartphone") is in dusting off old ideas that can be implemented with the "now ubiquitous" technology.

Old ideas that require a kilometers long particle accelerator, or three mules and 45 feet of leather strapping aren't nearly as exciting as seeing something cool done with this cheap computer with a radio transmitter that you keep in a pocket next to your gonads.

I once got kudos from Mr. Dean Kamen for employing a Handspring Visor to do medical datalogging. Yeah, medical datalogging had been done before, our company had been doing mostly that for the previous 25 years, and we didn't have anything to do with development of the Palm Pilot or the Visor, but we recognized the newly affordable, highly portable computers for their potential as a significant component of what was previously a much larger, more expensive, and less portable system. Sure, it could have been done 3 years earlier with "off the shelf" tech, but using the Visor dropped the development costs of the overall system by nearly an order of magnitude. I was a little embarrassed when he said it, but, looking back, we had the idea fairly far along in development as an accessory to interface to the serial port of a Palm Pilot before the Visor was announced, and when the Visor was announced, we backed up (maybe a month's work) to redo the device as an "on the bus" expansion board for the Visor instead. Our timing to take advantage of the Visor launch couldn't have been better - completely accidental, but that's how it worked out.

For what it's worth, investment bankers took over the spinoff company that developed the idea, they got all queasy about depending on other companies and "non commodity technology" to support their investment so they went much more vertically integrated, building their own PDA, and recoding all the PC side software in Visual Studio and MFC (from Borland's OWL). In some senses, they were right, Borland and Palm/Handspring did die fairly soon thereafter, but in another view, their prescience about these problems is what hobbled their growth, taking almost a year to re-code the software, and longer to build their own PDA - if they had pushed harder on what they had in-hand, their time to market would have been dramatically reduced, and maybe they would have done better for the original investors. As it turned out, they just plodded along, slipping into chapter 11 about 10 years down the road.

"Kamen built the iBOT with gyroscopes that are programmed to create balancing capabilities based on an individual's center of gravity. The gyroscopes, in effect, emulate the principle by which humans are able to stand, balance themselves, and navigate around and through various environments and terrain by always offering a counterbalance."

his company was not responsible for all the hype building up to Segway's release. they have made a ton of incredibly useful inventions and i would think anyone with any interest in technology or engineering would know about his work long before the Segway. inventing a portable insulin pump seems like a pretty valid invention, right? a wheelchair that can climb stairs?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen/
or
http://www.dekaresearch.com/

I believe you might be thinking of the IBOT wheelchair engineered by the same people behind the HT. Dean Kamen was the primary inventor behind both and created the IBOT with his company DEKA. I suppose one could augment the control of the wheelchair (IBOT) to be more like the Toyota product or add in some basic AI helper functionality into its control.

You're probably thinking of the Ibot wheelchair, which debuted before the Segway, but still invented by Dean Kamen and DEKA. Same/Similar technology, but differant company. The Centaur is a concept thrown out by Segway engineers which they thought would be fun to build. It's more of a "hey this might be cool" kind of thing they built for the heck of it, they have no plans to market/manufacture these things. The Ibot on the other hand, is a product that will be marketed eventually.

Frankly, it is the manufacturers of medical devices that I think would be most capable of designing such a product.

Sure, engineers in the medical field may not pick the best motor, or they may not have the flashiest or most configurable robot, but it would more than likely stop its blades from spinning before even coming close to making contact with a dog's paw or an inquisitive child's hand.

If he ever wanted to, I think Dean Kamen's DEKA would make an excellent robot mower.

or the segway-style wheelchair IBOT for those pesky stairs, gravel, etc.

same technology, inventor, and company as the Segway.

Shouldn't robots get away from the 'two wheel' system? I mean, it's going to be limited to (fairly) flat plane areas. I would think the IBOT would make a much better base for a robot.

What a coincidence!. It looks like Dean Kamen's company was working on just such a thing!

Okay, now to turn off the sarcasm (sorry, I couldn't resist) - Kamen was working on the just-approved product called iBot for quite some time. It was the "Fred" to Segway's "Ginger" (after legendary film dance pair Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers), and was in the FDA approval process for quite some time before being approved earlier this year as a medical device. iBot can maneuver disabled humans in an upright position, navigate stairs, and handle terrain that would stymie conventional wheelchairs. I believe they cost around $20k - they're being sold commercially through a Johnson & Johnson division.

It's known that Kamen is working on a Stirling Engine variant. There's been a lot of speculation that it's being developed as a power source for a Segway 2.0-type device. A Stirling power source could seriously improve the range of a Segway and make it a much more practical means of travel.

Segway / DEKA Research is a New Hampshire company.

Mount Washington is the highest point in New Hampshire (or New England for that matter, but not -- as is commonly believed around here -- the highest point on the US east coast: that title goes to North Carolina's Mount Mitchell).

As a popular landmark & attraction, Mount Washington has great appeal in New England. The "This car climbed Mt. Washington!" bumper stickers are ubiquitous, and driving up the mountain's wind-swept road in the family minivan or station wagon has been a rite of passage for generations of New Englanders.

That is why they had to drive Segways up the mountain. This is a New England transportation invention, but that just wouldn't be complete without the obligatory drive up Mount Washington.

The real question is whether or not the Segways they took up the mountain have any space for the bumper sticker :-)

What is impressive and life-changing about the segway is not the segway itself, but the technology it employs. The same technology that powers the segway also powers the IBOT, something like a wheelchair, delivering a previously unheard of amount of mobility to disabled users.

A lot of people may not know this, but the segway, in addition to being a means of transportation, is also a testbed for technologies used in Dean Kamans latest invention, the iBOT. Its a new wheelchair thats being tested by the FDA, but most of its technology has been proven in the non medical(meaning it didnt have to be tested by the FDA) Segway HT. The iBOT is a revolutionary wheelchair with that can climb stairs and raise a person up to normal eye-level. link link link link

I thought the neatness of the Segway was the gyroscopic handling of weight balance on a single axle, not the engine per se, though I believe you are correct that it contains one of his engines.

Kamen gave an hour long talk where I work about a year ago. The entire time he was sitting in another invention of his, a wheel chair that can go from sitting on 4 wheels/2axles to only 2 wheels/1 axle, which since then has been named the iBot. The second mode giving the person added height to reach thing on higher shelves, and being similar to the Segway in that you can't fall over, even despite my largest co-worker yanking on the thing with kamen in it. Kamen didn't like that too much. MSN had a good video trial usage of this, here's the cooresponding article

Dean Kamen's super advanced robotic wheelchair is far more impressive (a lot of the technology behind the Segway comes from it). It is 4 wheel drive, can stand a person upright so that the wheelchair bound can look "norms" in the eyes, climbs stairs with ease, is faster than a Segway, and is as compact a normal non-folding wheelchair.

And he has been working on a true compact Stirling Engine using modern materials for quite some time. Supposedly is quite close to getting it working affordably. Such a device could do wonders for the energy problems of today (not to mention providing electric power even in the most remote areas).

This is also the guy that invented several key medical devices used in much of modern cardiovascular and vascular medicine. Things such as a blood pump that due to the design of the turbine blades within it does not damage blood cells as they pass through the device.

Dean is also the founder of the US FIRST program designed to get children of the US (and other countries) interested in science and invention at an early age. The US FIRST robotics competition has inspired some very interesting advances in robotics.

Dean Kamen's super advanced robotic wheelchair is far more impressive (a lot of the technology behind the Segway comes from it). It is 4 wheel drive, can stand a person upright so that the wheelchair bound can look "norms" in the eyes, climbs stairs with ease, is faster than a Segway, and is as compact a normal non-folding wheelchair.

And he has been working on a true compact Stirling Engine using modern materials for quite some time. Supposedly is quite close to getting it working affordably. Such a device could do wonders for the energy problems of today (not to mention providing electric power even in the most remote areas).

This is also the guy that invented several key medical devices used in much of modern cardiovascular and vascular medicine. Things such as a blood pump that due to the design of the turbine blades within it does not damage blood cells as they pass through the device.

Dean is also the founder of the US FIRST program designed to get children of the US (and other countries) interested in science and invention at an early age. The US FIRST robotics competition has inspired some very interesting advances in robotics.

The guy who invented the segway had an ubermobility wheelchair thing.

Enjoy.

Hmmm, if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say this is another Dean Kamen thing... Way to go man!

A report in the New York Times on Wednesday said Wozniak would not immediately announce what products he is developing. A spokesman for the company was not immediately available to comment further.

If he's interested in hyping up his GPS doo-hickey, perhaps he should tell us what it is.

If he's interested in hyping his stock, he should hang out with Dubya.

The 1st problem with this technology is the high temprature 400C is a material science problem.

The next is the poor overall efficiency. MIT says they get 2X times the efficiency. From Photonpower.com I remember a 5% efficiency, so lets be generous and claim 15% efficiency.

Yet, with the use of stirling engine technology A $90 750Watt engine or the mystical Ginger or IT you can use waste heat and get power. Stirlings will move with as little as a 2C temprature difference. 90% as a CHP is possible

If you want to get excited about the idea of heat/electricity, then go take a look at some Naval research that could provide room grade AC w/o state change presently used.

But this technology? Not that exciting, and that is ONLY because of the high temprature.

Whatever happened to Dean Kamen's mysterious Ginger project? Could that be some sort of flying machine? And why does Amazon lilst it under "Electronics"? Enquiring minds want to know.

Deka Research home of Kamen's research company appears to be slashdotted. The Google-rama cached copy tells us little (here)

Maybe we'll all get lucky and IT wont be bullshit and marketing - maybe it will be something wonderfull - something beyond consumer crap and markatroid drivel... God knows we need something to clear out the underbrush... these are some very serious statments (vauge but lofty).. my only worry is that Jeff "One Click IP $WHORE$" Bezos has anything to do with IT

Maybe IT is a patent for air -- and the 'design changes' required to accomidate IT simply have to do with metering all of our useage ;(

According to the Salon article:

http://www.dekaresearch.com/
...is the inventor's homepage.