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"We said, we can do this, but the gyroscope technology--we didn't think people could afford it."

Rad2Go : Segway = I-Cybie : Abio

I guess there's a market for knock-off gucci watches, so why not knock-off Segways? But still, I think it's in very bad taste. I hope they get laughed off the stage.

• It's hardly sold.
• It was recalled because a low battery could cause riders to fall.
• It's mostly fodder for jokes on TV shows like Frasier.
• Despite all this, I asked Santa for one for Christmas and he let me down.

Here is a monumental safety imporvement to any low speed scooter, like a balancing scooter, a segway, or something else:

Problem: In a low speed (under 15 mph) failure of the equipment, the passenger will continue to move forward after the vehicle has stopped. The safest and most reasonable thing for the passener to do when the vehicle halts is to step off the front. However the front handlebar of these scooters eliminate that option, and as noted by the first reference, and more publicly by Mr. Bush, you will be thrown down on your face.

Solution: Remove the front handlebar. You could implement the controls on a rear handlebar that wraps arround the sides of the rider. It would make the vehicle less natural to mount (you step into it backwards) but much safer to bail off of at speed. If this is unacceptable, (or if passangers need to be able to bail off of an out of control scooter without being run over by it), provide the controls above one or two handlebars on the sides of the vehicle.

Better Idea Forget the whole self balancing nonsense as proposed by the third reference. Tricycles, however, are very unstable when turning. Make a quadricycle with no stearing column or handlebars. Put a pressure sensing pad on the top - transfer of pressure in any direction indicates a desire to exprerience acceleration in the opposite direction. The rider only fails to communicate with the platform if she has lost her balance and her center of mass is no longer "over" the platform (with respect to gravity and any pseudo forces she is experiencing), i.e. when she has already comitted herself to falling off. The vehicle automatically stops when the platform is vacated.

It says the Segway tops out at 6 mph. In reality, the number is 10 mph for the P Series and 12.5 for the I and E Series. (source: Seqway Specs.
Get your facts straight!

Not quite showtime! I guess even Big O had to come from somewhere...

Yes. In this millenium, we have also introduced a gyroscope-driven two-wheeled go-cart and a sophisticated clustered networking device. Now, let me show you how to work the three seashells...

Fine, what I meant to say then is: "IN MY OPINION, this is pointless and doesn't add any useful features to a scooter," and so on.
Well, that is still too harsh. :) It would be fine, though, to say "FOR ME this device is pointless and doesn't add to a scooter any features useful TO ME". As it is, you still try to combat the facts, namely that Segway is useful to some people, because they bought it, they use it, they save money with it and they are happy with it. QED. Point proven.

In my experience, and especially my experience with motorized vehicles, that making things any more complex than they need to be is a bad thing in the long term.

Well, if you can make a self-balancing human transporter, smaller, cheaper and simplier than Segway, why don't you tell Kamen about your ideas? Surely he will appreciate your constructive criticism.

The Segway is indeed the only consumer vehicle I've ever seen that combines all the liabilities of two wheels with none of their benefits
Well, if you don't see any benefits, you are either completely uninformed, or completely stupid. In the former case, please check at least Segway.Com and Book of Seg. In the latter case, please don't bother to reply and don't waste my time with your groundless assertions.

WTF???

I will repeat my argument, but with the main word now highlighted for your reading comfort:
"but product X can do almost everything product Y can and it also has many other advantages, so don't buy Y."
Do you see the point? All people have unique needs and for some people the benefits of Segway outweight the drawbacks. These people buy them. If you want to continue to ignore the fact that Segway has REAL benefits (some of them mentioned in my previous post), you just will make yourself look stupid.

A use for the Segway.

I'm waiting for someone to combine the iDesk and the Segway

Interesting analogy, but not quite correct. A VCR is primarily an entertainment good, and is marketed as such. Panasonic doesn't go around saying "This new VCR will change the way you live your life!"

The Segway is marketed as a life-saving, ground-shaking, useful vehicle -- an "evolution in mobility", or so says their website. Nowhere do they market the Segway as an entertainment device, or a toy.

A much more relevant (but still not terribly accurate) analogy would be to compare getting pissed off about the price of a segway to getting pissed off over the disparity in cost and features between safety equipment in American and European cars.

Pretty much every European car comes with all kinds of advanced safety equipment. You've got to shell out the big bucks to see this kind of stuff in the US.

It's rather silly to go around touting that you're going to revolutionize life as we know it, and then ask some outrageous amount of money as compared to other devices that do similar things.

It really sucks to have this technology dangled in front of us, just to have it out of reach for the people that would really benefit from it (poor workers stuck in cities with no/poor public transport).

....if there's still someone who's not seen the original presentation vids........You don't know what you're missing;o))

Just in case you are retarded and haven't watched the laugh out loud videos at http://www.segway.com, here's a linky.

Did you see the segway home page? Down at the bottom, they are selling insurance for this thing! Why not scare the old lady into paying a little extra for an insurance policy? They also imply that it is considered a "vehicle" by some insurance companies.

When you talk about busy streets filled with idlers, merchannts, and buskers (we call them "street musicians") the issue isn't speed, but control. That's why rollerbladers are such a nuisance -- it isn't hard to go slow on blades, it's hard to stop, at any speed! That's not true of the Segway, since it's controlled by instinctive body postures. You see somebody in front of you, you instinctively lean back, and the thing stops. Check out these videos.

The real concern on a crowded sidewalk isn't careless or poorly trained Segway riders. The real concern is malicious riders. I would think there'd be a way to handle this without completely banning the product.

One notable PF city (San Francisco) has gone and banned the Segway. I blame this on kneejerk anti-business attitudes. Now, "kneejerk" is not a word I use lightly -- it's too popular with right-wingers who are too lazy to properly rebut the arguments of left-wingers. (Indeed, you could say that using the word is itself usually a kneejerk reaction.) I say "kneejerk" in this case because the main anti-Segway group loves to make comparisons with SUVs and other corporate stupidities. But they themselves admit that there's only been one Segway-related injury so far.

The big concern seems to be that Segways will be misused by irresponsible riders who will speed down sidewalks, scattering senior citizens right and left. But the Segway designers seem to have anticipated precisely this issue: how fast your Segway can go is determined by which key you use to turn it on. The keys are conspicuously colored, so it would be easy to require Segwayers to use the "beginner" key in heavily trafficed areas. That limits the scooter to 6mph, which is about how fast most people walk.

$40 per hour is definitely closer to renting a jetski for amusement than a car for travel. Do these things have a purpose?

I did see one used recently. A security guard at Epcot at Disneyworld was using it between the Innovations buildings, never moving more than 30 feet at a time. He was asked to take a photo, and took the picture without getting off of it. He was probably under orders to stay on it.

I thought it was a great idea for security to be able to move fast. But they already have golf carts, which have the additional ability of transporting unwell customers and emergency equipment.

Segways only weigh 83 pounds, and are small enough to store in the trunk of a midsize sedan, so theft would be a major concern.

Again, where is the use in the real world?

Why does it always have to be the station wagon full of tapes? Why is it always across the continental U.S.?

What is it about the credit card that makes it the ideal object with which to compare the size of a new product?

Why are unimaginably large storage devices measured in Libraries of Congress?

Let's change it up a bit: A Segway rider, traveling 15 miles across town in three hours with 1 TB in his backpack will be running faster than OC12.

You have to realize that the PC boom didn't segway immediately into the Internet boom.

Was that segway a typo, intending segue, or were you being clever? :-)

In any case, the "boom" had exceedingly little to do with any particular technology, but it had to do with a mad rush to the trough with a lot of investment bankers making a lot of money, and like all overblown bubbles eventually it burst. It may as well have been a boom over pet rocks (err, P2P Open Source Bluetooth Linux pet rocks) or hoola hoops for all the actual technology mattered.

Quick fact that a lot of people fail to appreciated: Year over year tech spending has been increasing year over year, albeit at a small amount. Today more is spent on technology and technology solutions in the computer arena than it was during the "super boom". Tell me again about what will bring about the next windfall?

It's a Segway for the air.

" ...that people riding these look like dorks who are trying to hold in a massive bowel movement... "
I think she looks pretty damn hot on one..

It is not sour grapes. It is reaction to a lot of over hype for an inferior product. Several unspoken secrets that are in the technical specs on their site are that the range of a full charge is at best 15 miles and estimated at 5 miles on rugged/hilly terrain. Secondly, and most importantly, the life of the batteries is only 300 cycles! Do the math: at best you get 4500 miles and at less than optimal you get 1500 miles before you have to replace the batteries. Real world experience will inevitably be less.

Compare this $4000 dollar human transporter with a $1000 moped. A moped has a range of 50-150 miles on a tank, can go 20-55 depending on whether the restrictor is left in and lasts as long as a car. A moped is low tech, so no costly repairs, a moped can be pushed or pedaled on failure, a moped can go in car traffic and bicycle traffic. A moped was not overhyped as a revolutionizing mode of transportation, but is a better deal in all respects.

Ginger: $5000
Marianne: free! winner! winner!

Segways cost $4950. My wife has already banned me from owning one.

Human powered top speed: 80.6 mph

and after some quick calculations
60/((9.7*16)/60)
Human top speed on foot: 23 mph

12.5 mph doesn't seem so dangerous to me, it is about 3 times faster than I walk comfortably, and slightly faster than when i jog.

California used to think it was ok enough:

Old Press Release

Personally, I don't think they should ban them, but instead regulate their usage and make owners responsible for their use just like they do with everything else.

40 MPH?????

though frankly i do remember at some point reading specs on their website about their "off road capable" model being able to hit 15.

not saying that i would like to be hit one at 12 MPH on the other hand, it certainly wouldnt be pleasant, but it's nothing like turning the sidewalks into the mini highways you imply ;)

Did some digging and came up with a nifty little comparison. both vehicals are electric, so it all comes down to the nitty gritty.

Segway
Range: Appox 15 miles/charge
Speed: 12mph
Cost: $4,950.00 [Amazon.com]

Viento Scooter
Range: Appox. 50 miles/charge
Speed: 30mph
Cost: $2,999.99

There are three main advantages the Segway has over our competitor. 1) It's really compact. 2) It's "sexy" 3) You can drive it on sidewalks, however flawed I may find that. Oh, and auto stabilization for those who didn't learn to ride a bike. That's nice until you realize for about $2,000 less you gain speed, range and utility, only sacrificing some size, percieved coolness and the legalities of driving on sidewalks while gaining Speed, range and utility.

And no, I'm not considering the supposed saftey of the Segway, because people can still be idiots whatever they drive. Mixing a maximum 250lbs at 12mph on a sidewalk full of pedestrians is a BAD idea. But hey, the Segway is still cool. (I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find a neato looking scooter too).

Revolutionary? It's not as if alternatives didn't already exist.

Just look at this picture. Go ahead, I'll wait here.....
Now, admit it, those two look like dorks. Thanks, but I'll walk.

Actually...I was thinking more along the lines of RAS into the home network. Issue your "startup" command while you drive home from Dinner.

Lights come on, the heat is turned up a few notches, bath water starts running at a comfortable 106 degrees, the stereo comes on to your favorite cd...etc.

For a biped...why couldn't they employ technology like in Segway. Use the gyroscopes to autobalance the unit but instead of rotating wheels just have muscle like control over a foot where the whole body is pulled forward (Tibialis anterior) or back (Gastrocnemius) by the stable foot against the ground.

Any problems with this idea? You would need some side to side stabilization too. For Standing still you would use both feet to stabilize but when walking you would have to only use one (pick up and lean the unit forward).

Just a thought

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/dan.coughlin

Yesterday I submitted A Plan For A Wireless Park in Portland. Portland is re-designing its Waterfront Park.

They liked it! I got an immediate response from the people in charge who said they'd CC the wireless ideas to everyone in the department and include it in their newsletter.

I like the idea of interactive, engaging and site-specific applications. The Dialtone Symphony (.ram) is wholly produced through the choreographed ringing of people's own cell phones. Here are some other ideas:

• Talking maniquins
• Interactive Sculpture
• Triggered light/sound sequencers
• City Clouds
• 360 Live Video at public events
• Wi-Fi in Stadiums
• Traffic Maps
• Visitor Information and Narrated Neighborhood Tours
• Videoconference to linked Kiosks around the state or in nearby hotels.
• Real-time Location Information for event managers with devices like Vocera's communicator badge
• Jogging kiosks with comparitive times, personal history and bio monitor
• E-mail/picture kiosks
• RF-ID wrist bands for kids ($2.99) or "find friends" (free)
• Weather, news and park info
• Recreation Bulletin Board
• Live bird cams
• Events triggered by cell calls
• Jam sessions
• Card tournaments
• Yahoo games

The Public Review Draft of Portland's Waterfront Park Master Plan is available on-line.

The Morrison Bridge, in the center of Waterfront Park, has phone line access. An Orinoco 2500 ($1000) could drive Wi-Fi repeaters on the north end (near Saturday Market) and the south end, (near the Alexis Hotel), providing blanket coverage. The repeaters could be camouflaged as animals or Oregon historic figures. Waterfront Park also has a direct shot to the Council Crest tower where Winfield Wireless has a wireless ISP.

Rent out Segway Scooters with built-in Pocket PCs. Your GPS position would trigger Oregon Historical Society's Narrated Neighborhood Tours, Portland Visitor's Association's Self-Guided Tours, Portland Metro Maps or Lewis and Clark Maps. Wireless cameras could be helpful for the police, too.

Jacksonville Florida's free wireless hot spots provide tourist information as well as internet access. Multi-lingual kiosks, incorporating webtablets with language translation are available now. Text to speech can be output in a variety of languages. And it sounds good. Human voice samples are now incorporated into text to speech. Choose a language, respond by voice.

Don't give up! Put some wireless ideas together and send it to your Parks Department.

Dreams DO come true!

Interactive, engaging and site-specific applications are a click away. The Dialtone Symphony (.ram) is wholly produced through the choreographed ringing of people's own cell phones. Here are some other ideas:

• Talking maniquins
• Interactive Sculpture
• Triggered light/sound sequencers
• City Clouds
• 360 Live Video at public events
• Wi-Fi in Stadiums
• Traffic Maps
• Visitor Information and Narrated Neighborhood Tours
• Videoconference to linked Kiosks around the state or in nearby hotels.
• Real-time Location Information for event managers with devices like Vocera's communicator badge
• Jogging kiosks with comparitive times, personal history and bio monitor
• E-mail/picture kiosks
• RF-ID wrist bands for kids ($2.99) or "find friends" (free)
• Weather, news and park info
• Recreation Bulletin Board
• Live bird cams
• Events triggered by cell calls
• Jam sessions
• Card tournaments
• Yahoo games

The Public Review Draft of Portland's Waterfront Park Master Plan is available on-line.

The Morrison Bridge, in the center of Waterfront Park, has phone line access. An Orinoco 2500 ($1000) could drive Wi-Fi repeaters on the north end (near Saturday Market) and the south end, (near the Alexis Hotel), providing blanket coverage. The repeaters could be camouflaged as animals or Oregon historic figures. Waterfront Park also has a direct shot to the Council Crest tower where Winfield Wireless has a wireless ISP.

Rent out Segway Scooters with built-in Pocket PCs. Your GPS position would trigger Oregon Historical Society's Narrated Neighborhood Tours, Portland Visitor's Association's Self-Guided Tours, Portland Metro Maps or Lewis and Clark Maps. Wireless cameras could be helpful for the police, too.

Jacksonville Florida's free wireless hot spots provide tourist information as well as internet access. Multi-lingual kiosks, incorporating webtablets with language translation are available now. Text to speech can be output in a variety of languages. And it sounds good. Human voice samples are now incorporated into text to speech. Choose a language, respond by voice.

Parks have not caught up with the wireless society. Let's make it happen!

So, how long till *these* guys get a buyout off from Apple?

:p

1. The weight of the unit has to come down. The current 65 pound weight is a bit much to carry up and down staircases.

San Francisco plans to fight back, according to this Examiner article. Senior-citizen activists and walkers protested they don't want to share their space with a 95 lb machine traveling 12 mph.

Well while they might be mechanically able to travel at 12 or even 14 MPH, if you check the Segway website they are now using a reference speed of just 9 MPH on sidewalks (presumably it would be even less on dirt paths). If anything I think that is too slow.

Considering marathoners go about 12 MPH, and sprinters go about about 20 MPH and they are both legal on the sidewalk (and most of them weigh over 95 lbs - except the women marathoners) why do they insist on keeping these things so slow if they are supposed to be just as safe as a pedestrians? I never could figure out why they think it will succeed at a speed half of what you can bicycle at comfortably. (Yes, I know bicycles are banned from sidewalks in most places but that is rarely enforced - and bicycles are generally allowed on running paths.)

The point of the Segway was to reduce the number of cars on the road. Cars kill thousands of pedestrians every year, not to mention reducing air quality and making any activity that requires breathing the air outdoors less pleasant and potentially unhealthy. (Though I guess the greenhouse effect has some net positive effect on providing more walkable days weather wise - assuming you don't want to walk along the beach.)

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

Enjoy.

Why?

• bot's brains are powered by an open source version of this anemic, vertically and aesthetically challenged but smart bot.
• bot aint got none smarts you like? Then twittle some bits. (holy open source batman!)
• bot doesnt look like a dragon (want that? hire your mother in law - more expensive perhaps but meaner too)
• bot embodies all that is Mac. In fact that's what it is mostly.
• bot's drive train is similar to the Segway, its quite mobile and can run down any lesser charged bad person. (But it would'nt - it's a pacifist, you see - it would release the underfed rot-weiler boogie man visceration system. Bot believes in using the right tool for the job.)
• bot knows how to charge itself [bot could learn us a thing or two]. With object recognition it just finds a jack and plugs itself in.
• Bot doubles as a...
  • Mobile desktop/workstation (eg, 'bot, set up my workstation out there yonder by the olympic pool next to Heather - dont forget the beer this time. Oh and blow Heather up too')
  • Mobile access point
  • Mobile entertainment system
  • Door man.(If the guest is carrying a bible or a gun - other appropriate action is taken ;-))
  • Art
  • A writer. Bot write good, master.

That would make them easier to find than Segways.

What? You still ride a bicycle?

Your Segway must be broken then ;).

The super-villian is not 100% evil, he's got the brains to make all these amazing world-destroying devices, powerful computers, wonderful transportation devices.

The 100% evil people are the ones who haven't quite got the brains. They make crappy computers, pathic transportation devices, not quite soul-destroying robots and then, and this is the evil bit, they persuade us to turn over our hard-earned cash and use them on ourselves :-(

Rumors are Apple itself will come out with Windows compatible software or hardware. But since it's Apple there's no way to know for sure.

Yeah, really...after all, look what happens when Jobs says he has something that will change the world.

I bet you use 3rd party apps to make your MP3s. You should be glad Apple isn't preventing 3rd parties from making compatibility software.

Good point. My entire desktop is mainly "third party" stuff. Even if Apple included something, I'd probably end up seeking out another company who's sole purpose was to build something better...I never got the point of having one company do everything. Would you rather buy MP3 software from an MP3 software company, or a hardware/software/servers/office/home/lamps/scoote rs/mp3-players company?

Yes, I'm frustrated ATM. Nothing personal.
Great, first Sentient ATM now a frustrated one. I'll look forward to oh-so-clever stories of eating cigarettes in the future. ;)

Go here for the specifications of the Segway. Quite interesting.

i have a hard time believing they need 5 separate systems to do the calculations

From here: For redundancy purposes, we installed a total of five gyroscopes, each oriented in such a way that any angular motion of the machine will be sensed by at least two gyroscopes.

This FAQ on the segway site states that they recommend using "snow tires" in heavy snow areas. The tires are not in production yet, but they've tested prototypes (the FAQ also links to a video of them testing snow tyres).

Segway has a video of the scooter with snow tires.

It looks pretty stable, amazingly enough. For the bucks, I'm sticking with my bike.

Segway has a video of the scooter with snow tires.

It looks pretty stable, amazingly enough. For the bucks, I'm sticking with my bike.

More info on Segway available by phone

By phone???? Seriously? Ever heard of the interweb for cryin' out loud?

Try: http://www.segway.com/. This *is* /. man.

Vegas should just skip the monorail phase and go straight to transporters.

Or Segways . Close the strip to cars and fill the city with Segways. It'd be the perfect commercial for both the city and the Segway.

Or Trebuchets . Boy, I'm full of helpful ideas tonight!

I'll bet that they thought there would be one of these in a bubble by the 21st century...