Slashdot Mirror
This is IT?
Dave (picked at random) and 8000 other slashdot readers wrote in to tell us that they too had been overcome by the relentless hype machine that is IT, Ginger, Segway, whatever. Read about IT in your favorite hype-dispensing media outlet, each of which thinks that it has an exclusive on the story of IT. Flash diagram of IT. Time. NY Times. Reuters. And don't forget to watch the advertisement, errr, "demonstration" of IT on Good Morning Consumers tomorrow. Update: 12/03 13:37 GMT by T : Segway's webmaster John Grohol points out the segway website as well.
It may be hyped but it could be a breakthrough. At any rate it is something that interests us as geeks. Stories about this broke on friday or maybe before and you have been getting thousands of submissions on the subject. It took you until tonight to actually post it. Hi, I don't know if you know tons of people think things are neat that you may not, but it is true. So if you get lots of posts on something then maybe it is worth posting.
This thing is not for rich suburban white guys who hang out on internet all day. Its for postmen and chinamen. Ever been to a crowded asian city? What a nightmare. The elites will definitaly prefer a Segway to other vehicles. The american consumer is probably the last market for this thing.
You say it is "just a scooter". That is like calling the automobile just a "horseless carriage." It's just the closest concept you have to fit. As far as hype, Kamen tried to downplay the "hype" none of which was advertisement, but statements "taken out of context" from the likes of Jobs and Metcalfe (you know the guy who said linux would "fade away"). Can't you see that a vehicle which uses Dynamic Stability to be driven as an extension of your own body movements is a great innovation? What the hell happened to Slashdot, where putting linux on the dreamcast is cool, just because it can be done, yet the Segway is "just a scooter." What the hell?
Damn it, I was hoping for a child-eating clown
Actually, I'm really surprised.
I would have expected a lot more acceptance from the other readers of Slashdot. Or maybe it is simply a case of the "Slashdot Syndrome". (that would be not reading the entire article before you post.)
This is amazing technology!
From the Time article:
"Lean forward, go forward; lean back, go back; turn by twisting your wrist. The experience is the same going uphill, downhill or across any kind of terrain--even ice. It is nothing like riding a bike or a motorcycle. Instead, in the words of Vern Loucks, the former chairman of Baxter International and a Segway board member, "it's like skiing without the snow."
I don't know how many of you have ever been snow skiing, but it is amazing! There is a reason it's so popular.
Also from the article:
"Cars are great for going long distances," Kamen says, "but it makes no sense at all for people in cities to use a 4,000-lb. piece of metal to haul their 150-lb. asses around town."
This is so true! We are so wasteful as a nation in this way. It makes absolutely no sense!
Again, from the article:
"...Dean Kamen...The 50-year-old son of a comic-book artist, he is a college dropout, a self-taught physicist and mechanical engineer with a handful of honorary doctorates, a multimillionaire who wears the same outfit for every occasion: blue jeans, a blue work shirt and a pair of Timberland boots." and "But if Kamen's personality is half Willy Wonka, the other half is closer to Thomas Edison. While he was still struggling in college, Kamen invented the first drug-infusion pump, which enabled doctors to deliver steady, reliable doses to patients. In the years that followed, he invented the first portable insulin pump, the first portable dialysis machine and an array of heart stents, one of which now resides inside Vice President Dick Cheney."
This guy is a hackers hacker! Give the guy a break. I'll be the first to say it (on Slashdot anyway) I think it's going to be a huge hit!
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
Electric Scooter $3000 or $600 Bike + $2400 Beer.
IT = 8MPH, Bike = 15MPH
IT = no excersize, Bike = 300+ Cal/hr
IT = No beer, Bike 2400 micro brew or 4800 Bud/MGD
IT = requires power, Bike = burn off beer gut (see above)
-- http://frobnosticate.com
I think all the people who are saying "electric scooter, big whoop. $3,000, yeah right" are slightly missing the point. Yeah, it's kind of wimpy for the price tag. Yeah, it's kind of expensive, and it's questionable who would want to use it.
But this is just the first model. It's more sort of a proof of concept--a demonstration that the scooter can work, and looks as neat as all get-out in motion. As time goes on, the performance will improve and the price will fall.
Look at the Palm (Pilot). The first model was, what, 128K? With no backlight, no infra-red, or anything? And how high was the price tag? And now the Visor Deluxe, which was at one time the wet dream of anybody who even looked at a Palm, is only $130 brand new.
Look at the DVD player. The original models were expensive enough, the first bunch of discs were glitchy enough, that a lot of people scoffed and made snide remarks. But the DVD went on to become the fastest-adopted new consumer technology ever.
So here we have a relatively slow, electric-powered self-stabilizing scooter, for $3,000. Are very many of us going to buy it? Do very many of us have the money to sink into that sort of gee-gaw? No and no. I know I'm not going to be spending three grand on something like that myself, either. Nor would I be likely to spend two grand, or even one grand.
But by the time it gets to about $500, sign me up.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Every once in a while for the past couple of months, I'd come across some tiny blurb about "the much-hyped (IT|Ginger)". But these blurbs, which seemed to be few and far between, primarily dealt with the "hype" surrounding this thing. They would have been a sort of meta-hype, except that there weren't even enough of those articles to constitute anything more than a sort of collective raised eyebrow.
There wasn't even a concerted effort to be mysterious about it, as far as I can tell. Nobody was saying much, and nobody much cared when it did come up.
So now I'm supposed to believe that this scooter thing was made out to be the next Sliced Bread, that everyone was quivering in anticipation, and that rumours have been swirling for months about its mysterious nature? Bullshit, we've barely heard of it. This is a strange sort of revisionist history indeed.
Or maybe I just don't go to the same parties that Time reporters do.
I used to be a Rocket Scientist (for real.... well, actually a Guidance, Navigation, and Control Flight Software Engineer for rockets) and this confused me a bit too.
If you look at the flash diagram, it actually has two small electric motors. (these aren't "engines"?).
The gyroscopes are used to provide torques to help the rider balance. The accelerometers detect the command motions (leaning forward or back or straight up). The small motors propel the Segway forward. (or backwards).
The fancy trick here is getting the control system software to tell the difference between a rider falling forward and 'commanding' forward by leaning forward. (amoung other fancy tricks). Overall the concept is simple, but the implentation is not as easy as it looks.
Being a bicyclist, I am partial to light, fast, cheap transportation. The Segway appears to be none of these. It is expensive, a brute-force solution to a non-problem IMHO. That's why I, at least, am underwhelmed.
Then again, I dislocated my shoulder last week on my bicycle while avoiding traffic. Maybe I can ride it again tomorrow, maybe not, but it has been quite painful and made it much harder to run errands around town (take the time to run an errand on a bike and double it; you've just arrived at the time to complete it, driving, if it's in downtown DC and you have to park). This device would make such injuries irrelevant. I'm sure it would be wonderful for elderly or infirm people who can't drive. So perhaps I am an "able-ist" in that I am biased to think about things as if I'll always be hale and healthy.
If the product is made affordable, it would be a lot nicer and less intrusive than a Lark or a Rascal for sure. But I don't see it as being quite as revolutionary as the car, simply because it does not radically increase carrying capacity, doesn't really offer commercially compelling advantages over a regular scooter, pair of feet, or a bicycle to balance out the cost... I don't see how this device would change the world for the average mope, but for some people it sounds like a godsend.
Attenuate your expectations, as this Dean Kamen seems to be telling us, and in context it is pretty neat. Not earth-shattering, but pretty neat, alright.
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
This thing is a hacker's dream. It looks quite modern - microprocessors, firmware, etc. Not purely mechanical. The speed limit is set by the circuitry -- which means it is all hackable.
Imagine programming one of these things to spin you around, then accelerate to breakneck speed (perhaps literally) This could be quite fun!
We working in a global market. So what if most american cities can't make use of the segway? Who cares? This country is only 260 million out of 5 billion people. Small potatoes. What about China or India? They have huge cites, and few cars.
What happens when this thing gets lighter, more durable, and cheaper?
I know that I could use it right now (Boston). I walk to work everyday about 1.5 miles, and it would be cool to be able to ride on one of these. In fact, I would move futher if I could pipe along at 17 miles an hour.
I'm suprised at all the negative comments in this forum. Who wouldn't want one of these? What if it got down to $500? I mean, it's not as cool as a personal helicopter, but it's cool allright.
Think industrial, not just cites. Would this we useful getting around a large factory? (yes) How about delivering mail, fedex, or pizza door to door? (yes)
We all realize that it's not going to instantly change the world, but neither did the automobile or the airplane. It was a long process before things changed. Given time these things might get adopted all over the place. We'll see how it goes.
I like to think of it as an alternative to the bike, not competition. Both can easily coexist.
As for weather, here in the Midwest we occasionally use outerware to mitigate the effects of the elements on our epidermis. That comes highly recommended. And your mom told me you should wear a hat, too.
I believe (but haven't seen for myself) that most businesses today are currently wired for "electricity" available at convenient locations we call "outlets". And a space the size of one car-parking spot can probably hold one or maybe up to two of the Segway behemoths.
I really get disappointed when people who are smart in one area
He also owns an island off the coast of Connecticut. He calls it North Dumpling, and he considers it a sovereign state. It has a flag, a navy, a currency (one bill has the value of pi) and a mutual nonaggression pact with the U.S., signed by Kamen and the first President Bush
I don't care what "IT" is, Kamen owns an island with a monetary denomination of pi!
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
Initial implications for this device begin at the private sector. Imagine a mail carrier being able to strap on a pack and make a run in half as much time, going across sidewalks, dirt, grass, gravel, etc. Mail carriers at large corporations would be able to use this to get across larger buildings. Security guards could quickly and efficiently make their rounds, making it easier to put more rounds in a night. Park rangers could more easily get from point to point in a park. There are implications for airports, and any long walk areas that have the need for getting a certain percentage of people from point a to b quickly. Think about areas normally patrolled by officers on horseback or rollerblade or bicycle and just introduce segway/IT. Replace every oversized golfcart on a factory line that the management uses to shuffle from place to place inside.
For the public, there are schools/colleges where you might have classes on oposite ends of the campus, making it difficult to get books and then get to class on time making you carry a double load most of the day. For the infirm/elderly/disabled it would allow them to once again go for a "walk" in the park with their family/friends. It would allow people who are temporary disabled (casts, sprained ankles, etc.) to not need to slowly hobble everywhere they go. It will help the asthmatic who doesn't have the endurance to go on a hike with his friends to finally enjoy the outdoors like others. It would allow those already so damned lazy they can't walk two blocks to the store to not have to get in their car to go get something.
Notice any key theme in the above? Outdoors? Not just some punk ass kid (which we all were/are at some time) on a "scooter" bumping into you making you spill your latte, or noisily flying down the street on his gas powered scooter interrupting your nightly viewing of "Friends". Look at the design of this machine, large tires, self-balancing, automatic shutoff and speed control safety features, this is a standup ATV. Even if it has say only 30 minutes of battery life that's 4 miles at top speed (I'm assuming). Many people with asthma or cardio/pulminary problems can barely walk a block or two, imagine being able to say you went out for 4 miles. I could almost make it to work on a segway in the same amount of time as it takes me to drive through the traffic, as I'm sure many other people could. Training! Bah! Step on lean forward and go, easy as falling. Safety! Bah! Step off and the device stops dead. Redundancy in computing and drive mechanism means little chance of failure, catostrophic or otherwise. Price! Bah! $8,000 for the "industrial" version $3000 for the commercial version, early adoptors will easily pay. The early adoptors and an increase in chip speed/decrease in chip costs will drive the price down by half within the first year. By Christmas 2003 Korean companies will be selling knockoffs for $250 with fold up chasis and backpack straps. By 2004 they'll come in 15 different colorful shades and be as lame as the jellies, pagers, cell phones, and the backstreet boys.
Or the same people who drove the hype machine to it's heights can sit around an be dissapointed about how this won't change their miserable lives and bad mouth it and destroy yet another perfectly usable worthwhile product. How anyone could sit and bad mouth a man who educated himself, owns his own country (island), and works to do nothing but make the majority of peoples lives better, is just beyond me.
This assertion begs several questions (which are extremly relevent to someone living in, say, Austin, where I am):
I too, am in Austin, so hello!
1. How many people live close enough to work that they can afford the time to communte on a device that moves at walking speed? (no one I know)
Did you read the articles? It can move up to three or four times walking speed. Otherwise it would be pointless. Plus I am currently going to UT, and live about 15 minutes away, by walking. This would be a GREAT thing for me, as it would shorten the time down to 5 minutes or less. And it would help MANY people get around in this area, as in many other college campuses or downtowns. You think this wouldn't be of use to people living in downtown high rise apartments all over the world? I'm sure some live on one side of a cities business district, but work on the other. Too far to walk, yet not far enough to warrant the price you pay for gas to drive through traffic.
2. How many people live in places where the weather is neither too warm or too cold to spend the time outside?
With the recent cold spell here in Austin, I had to still walk to class, due to the lack of parking. Same thing applies in many other places. A lot of people are not forced to walk, but do so because it is more efficient. Well, when it gets cold, they are forced to either freeze their tails off or waste gas and time by riving a few miles through traffic. With this thing shortening your time my almost a third, if not more, it would be an excellent alternative. I know I can stand riding around on something for 5 minutes in freezing weather. Just early this week I was walking for 15 minutes in 40 degree weather with a 20 mph wind! And too hot? Thats when a nice 15 mph breeze from you moving on this thing comes in handy!
3. How many businesses have the infrastructure to handle storing and charging these things?
They run on NiCD or NiMH batteries. Again, if you read at least the Times article, you would know it takes $0.05 worth of electricity to completely charge one. And storage? Did you even check out that flash graphic of it? How hard is it to store something that takes up about the same amount of floor space of a persons two feet? Yeah it takes more, but this can easily fit into the corner of a cubicle or office no problem.
4. Is it really going to share the sidewalk with pedestrians? Where are they going to go now?
Again, read the damned article. It says being bumped into by one of these is like being bumped into by a person. And since they can be slowed down, they can move with pedestrians.
5. What about security? Riding around on a $3000 device that can't move faster than walking speed is a huge crime oppurtunity.
Again, read the article. Moves faster. Of course, same thing applies, if you're out at night with one of these, and you get muggged, its your own fault. Be smart.
If his device really is good enought to get rid of cars, it won't be because he SAID so, it will be because he made something that has the same (or better) combination of convinience, speed, economy (both $$ and time), and security as the car. And, unfortunately, this cool device is not "IT".
He didn't say it would get rid of cars. He said it would eventually, if they become as popular as he says, get cities to ban cars from downtowns so these could be taken advantage of. Already many places in many cities you have to walk because cars are off limits.
This is meant to compliment the car, not replace it. Read the article before posting please.
Moderators should too, so they realize that this post is not "insightful" or whatever it was modded up for.
Blake
Yes, there are. This is not actually news; stories about IT's true nature were available a week or so after the hype began. (I submitted, but apparently /. is none too interested in getting news out before its generally available.) Kamen is best known for his medical inventions: for example, he came up with the first wearable infusion pump, a Godsend to a certain type of diabetic who must have a steady influx of insulin to function well. In the earlier stories, IT was discussed as a mobility device for the handicapped, and although that's not the focus of the recent announcements its pretty clear that you could adjust the thing for a person with limited mobility by tweaking some of the control parameters.
The disabled, such as my 5-year-old son who suffers from Cerebral Palsy, are most often not retarded, but due to their limitations are indeed unable to operate a scooter or a car. IT may be just the thing for them. (And let me tell you, at $3000 it is priced very competitively with ordinary motorized wheelchairs.)
And the brethren went away edified.
I must say I'm rather disappointed with the /. community on this one. If the claims Kamen makes are true, this is a truly impressive piece of technology, and at a *minimum* it will be very useful in a number of niche markets.
I think whether it penetrates the consumer market and is able to compete with scooters, bicycles, and cars for short-haul trips is an unsolved question. But it clearly has a niche. It's a fraction of the weight and cost of a car, it's smaller (albeit a bit heavier) than a bike, and it's a *lot* faster than walking. Most of us can walk comfortably at 3-4 MPH. This thing goes 8-12 MPH. So it's definitely useful.
I'm a college student, and until last year I lived about a 15 minute walk away from campus. That meant I spent half an hour to an hour every day walking between class and home. This thing would have therefore saved me 10-20 minutes per day of walking time-- not a huge savings, but non-trivial. In addition, I make short trips around campus that take 5-10 minutes of walking. This thing could cut those times in half at least.
Could a bicycle do the same thing? Yes, but not nearly as well. First, bicycles are not as stable as this thing apperantly is. Secondly, if it works as described, bicycles don't deal with crowded sidewalks as well as this thing does. This is because a bicycle has to be moving to be stable. So if you have to stop to deal with traffic, you have to get off the seat and stand, which isn't very comfortable or convenient. Bicycles also don't deal well with sandy or slippery terrain, and you're farther off the ground, so falls will hurt a lot more. With this thing, at worse it starts to tip forward or backwards and you can just step off.
Also, because it's not as big or bulky as a bicycle, most people will probably be able to just bring the thing in with them when they arrive at their destinations. In my case, I work on campus, so I could just bring the thing into my office and leave it there until its needed. And it apperantly has an access key, so if you stole it you'd have to rip out the electronics and replace them in order to use it again.
The big concerns as I see them are threefold. First is the cost. This is *not* going to replace a car, so it has to be a lot cheaper than a car. I think $3000 is too high for 90% of consumers. If they can get it down to about $2000, there are going to be plenty of yuppies who will be willing to shell out for them. If they get it down to $1000, they'll be able to easily sell millions of them. I imagine that most of the cost is in the custom electronics and precision hardware-- stuff that should come down in price as it's mass-produced. Going after corporate and government markets should give them time to perfect their technique and bring costs down before invading the consumer space.
The second concern is weight. 65 lbs is more than most people can carry for any distance, and it's more than some people can even pick up at all. If I were to get one, one thing that I'd want to be able to do is take it on the bus with me, and it sounds like it's a little too heavy for that. I'd imagine that the battery and motors are most of the weight-- hopefully they can make a lightweight version soon.
The third factor that I think will impact its success is the extent to which different form factors can be made. For example, I can imagine an enclosed version for use in cold places in the winter. Or a slightly larger version with a small cargo bin for hauling stuff around. If the technology is flexible enough to accomodate these sorts of adjustments to the form factor, then I can see them making different model to meet different niches. If they made one big enough to let me carry a couple of bags of groceries on the back, that would eliminate one of the major reasons I'd need a car.
This invetion will go the way of the Sinclair horizontal bike.
It is awkward, expensive, makes you look like a dork, and isn't really more useful than something you already had.
Mind you, I'm never wrong about these things. When the CD-ROM was invented, I accurately predicted we would never hear from such a useless invention again. After all, it was more expensive than the PC you plug it in, and all of that for half a GB of read only data, while no one could have any conceivable use for read only data.
I also accurately predicted that Java would be just a fad. After all, who would need a slow interpreted platform independant language while only one platform would exist a few years on.
this time I'm right tho.
You're right - US cities are built around the automobile. Large arterial highways carrying cars large distances at large speeds (well, that's the theory). Cities sprawl - everything feels BIG. It's very American.
Here in London, it's pretty pointless to own a car, unless you use it to get out of the city. The city is flat, space is at a premium, and walking is actually a viable option, if you've got the time. 3 million people endure the horrors of the London Underground (hot, smelly, crowded, frequently broken) every day, simply because there aren't any alternatives. Segway might just work here, since Londoners are typically businesspeople, and won't do that nasty physically active stuff, like riding bikes.
As an example, I walked to work once or twice during Tube strikes this year, and it took about an hour. If I could Segway it in 20 mins, this would be *faster* than the tube, and hugely more enjoyable. All I'd need is covered pathways to keep the rain off and I'd be set.
Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer got on them and zipped around for a few minutes.
It's fucking cool, OK?
So, all you naysayers out there asking questions like "how does this replace a bicycle?" or "how does it corner?" Maybe you should have waited to see!
First, these things look fucking MANUVERABLE. They turn on a dime. If you're stationary, and you turn the handlebars, you can do a stationary 360 if you want. Try THAT on a bike. While Dean Kamen was being interviewed, he was standing there idling, kind of casually rolling back and forth.
Several times, Kamen took his hands completely off the handlebars and continued along. The platform kept perfect balance and kept going straight.
Gibson picked it up faster than Sawyer, and Sawyer almost fell off hers once (she forgot what she was doing and panicked, I think, half-leaping from the platform as it rolled towards the crowd). But by the end of the first commercial break, they had both mastered it, and were zipping all around the plaza with speed and aplomb.
They put speed-limits on the newscasters' units, but Kamen's unit was fully unregulated and looked like it could really move fast. (Imagine the disaster if either of those newscasters had suffered an injury on live television on the very first demonstration!)
Some other demonstrators ran an obstacle course, including ramps, rocks, shallow steps (nothing like a staircase, but at least 2 inches high), and yes indeed, water. One of the demonstrators even did a stationary 360 while stopped on the middle of the ramp. It was freaky looking. He rotated around, became diagonal, then straightened out and the thing didn't budge.
Guys, this thing looks really cool. It is time for you to give this thing the props it deserves. If you still want to knock it, fine, but remember: the "hype" attached with this thing came from totally unrealistic expectations and wild speculation, fueled in part by Slashdot reader comments.
>Get around town generating absolutely no >pollution
And that electricity is coming from where, fairies?
Uh, if you're in Boston, your electricity is probably coming from a 40-year-old natural-gas or coal-fired plant. You might well produce less pollution in some of the new SLEV Hondas than on an electric scooter.