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iBot Self-Balancing Mobility Device FDA Approved

ptorrone writes "In November of 2002, I was able to see the self-balancing iBot mobility device, which can go up and down stairs and travel/balance on two wheels, in person. It literally brought tears to my eyes seeing what it will mean for millions of disabled people around the world. Today, the FDA has approved its use, after years of approval processes and testing." We've mentioned this Dean Kamen-created product previously, but it's good to see it officially approved and available for those who need it.

10 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. Ahem... and in some more important news: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    An Iraqi IT company today filed a lawsuit accusing Microsoft of bribing a high-ranking government official to gain lucrative redevelopment business in post-war Iraq.

    In a lawsuit filed in the New York District Court on Friday, the Iraqi National Group for Computing alleges that Microsoft lavished a member of the newly formed Iraqi Council with brides worth an estimated $5 million between June and July 2003.

    Mustafa Al-Hussein, a former minister of Iraq's Ministry of Telephone and Telegraph, received cash payments, medical expenses, hotel accommodation and free use of private jets in return for pushing the government-controlled Iraqi Telecom Company to select equipment and services supplied by Microsoft, the suit alleges. As minister, Al-Hussein is currenrtly chairman of the Iraqi Telecom Company.

    National Group further alleges that it suffered damages of $233 million when the minister intervened to allow Microsoft to back out of a contract with the Iraqi firm.

    National Group is seeking triple damages against Microsoft under US racketeering laws.
    Microsoft has denied the charges against it, describing National Group's lawsuit as meritless. It has pledged to defend itself against the charges.

  2. TI-89 Issues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you TI fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of my calculator (a TI-89) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to invert a 7 by 7 matrix. 20 minutes. At home, on my HP48 running at 4 Mhz, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this TI, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

    In addition, during this matrix inversion, The calculator will not work. It has ground to a halt. Even BBEdit Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.

    I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various TI calculators, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a TI that has run faster than its HP counterpart, despite the TI's faster chip architecture. My Casio FX-100 runs faster than this 10 Mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the TI is a superior machine.

    TI addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use TI calculators over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

  3. First PRO-semitic post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Hi there.. Jews invented modern 4-wheel disc brakes as well as the modern fuel injection system. Jews are primarily responsible for the invention of the ballpoint pen. LASIK surgery was also pioneered by Jews. A Jew was kind enough to bequeath humanity with a hepatitis B vaccine, and another Jew gave us oral contraceptives. Holograms were invented by a Jew, and holograms are pretty darn cool. The shopping cart was invented by a Jew, including the collapsible back that allows them to conserve storage space.

    When cancer is cured, it will probably be by Jewish doctors. When fusion is mastered as an energy source, it will probably be by Jewish physicists. As nanotechnology frees us from the burdens of scarcity, we will notice that a hugely disproportionate number of the innovators in the field are Jews.

    Jon Abrams, if YOU are a Jew, you are NOT living up to your calling. Please reconsider your stance on fakesters immediately, or else you will become an "honorary" member of the inferior races.

  4. Ahem. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Jews also bequeathed us Christianity. I'd say the credit/debit balance is about equal now.

  5. Russian Igla and government hype by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    It's really weird to read something like this in Jane's (those in the business know what I mean).

    When the history of this week's 'breaking story' about the alleged smuggling of a Russian Igla surface-to-air missile into the USA is finally written, the subtitle should run as follows: 'State set-up; no relevance to terrorist threat'. JID sheds some light on a much hyped tale of stupidity, greed and political spin.

    Despite the plethora of over-excited media headlines earlier this week, the classic 'sting' operation, which was organised by the Russian secret service (FSB) and the USA's FBI to entrap an alleged arms dealer allegedly seeking to sell an Igla missile to what he apparently believed was a group of Islamic terrorists in the USA, revealed little beyond the intelligence services' insatiable desire for positive publicity. Put bluntly, there was no realistic prospect of this sort of advanced weapon being supplied to anyone without the active collusion of the Russian state authorities.

    Above all, most reports missed the main points. The real threat to the USA and its allies - and there is a genuine risk - comes less from hi-tech weaponry of the Igla variety than from the committed militant willing to commit suicide, which was demonstrated by Al-Qaeda on 11 September 2001. Moreover, Russia became involved in this 'sting' because its military has a well-deserved reputation for selling anything to anyone.

  6. Come on and join #fpn on OPN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    [05:58] (dreamer): typical. I finally get back online and noone's here.
    [05:58] (PovRayMan): I AM HERE
    [05:58] (PovRayMan): LETS PLAY
    [05:58] (PovRayMan): :)
    [05:58] * dreamer sits on PovRayMan's face

    The comedy gold just lives here!

  7. Important announcement for gnome zealots (5core:5) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Gnome 2.4, the desktop environment you have waited for, sucks more than 2.2 did. We advice you to install kde 3.1.4 from CVS until gnome 2.5 comes out. The following features will NOT be present, despite your constant whining
    • The new file dialog
    • The Galeon web browser. We chose January6 instead, because who wants tabbed browsing except you jerks. Look at mozilla, and you will see why we choose this lovley netscape 2 clone.
    • We will make file extration harder, because we don't want to waste space on the context menu. We have removed "Extract here" and you will now have to go though 5 menus to avoid going into the console and typing tar xjvzfcaq file.tar.gz.
    • We have made panel configuaration harder. Instead of an intuitve size dropdown with small large ect we have repaced it with a harder to use spinbox. This is beaucse the sizes upset stallman because we didn't have his trouser size in it so we replaced it. Have fun taking 20 clicks instead of 2. PS we removed the cute goat logo in the about box, now you have to look at the foot!
    • We will STILL not be including a media player, sure you can reboot into windows or play with mplayer from the command line. Why because our media libray sucks and we don't want to use a superior implemnetation.
    We have included some features, but they only did it because you were willing to suck havoc penningtons cock!
    • We added fake cmyk support in the gimp. Sure it LOOKs like it, but when you try to prepress or print it will look like monkey shit
    • We added a better weather applet, but it won't work on rainy days
    • Wanda the fish actually looks like a fish now
    • We added a menu editor, but when you use it you have to reboot for the changes to take effect
    • We made the gnome-terminal compatible with emacs, but you will need a czech keyboard to be compatible with the obscure keybindings.
    • As usual, we took more options away from the prefrences dialog and hid them in gconf where they belong
    Please send all complaints, complements and gay porn to havocpennington@gnome.org
  8. aPPLE OMO HELPDESK! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    aPPLE OMO HELPDESK has been opened! OMO EXUALS are welcome no matter where they come from!

    BE A PROUD OMO EXUAL, FANCY APPLE!

  9. aPPLE OMO HELPDESK CALLING aPPLE USERS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    aPPLE OMO HELPDESK HAS BEEN OPENED!

    OMO EXUAL minority are welcome! No matter where you come from! Be a PROUD OMO EXUAL and fancy aPPLE!

    aPPLE OMO HELPDESK answeres to all of your questions!

  10. Re:Videos of it in use by anubi · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    I was very pleased that those videos you posted were .mpgs ... I can't tell you how pissed I get when someone has some neat stuff but it requires me to install some proprietary crap viewer to see it.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]