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Toyota Announces the Winglet, Wannabe Segway Killer

Posted by kdawson on from the strange-marketing-moves dept.

Various gadget/toy venues are writing about the Toyota Winglet, a diminutive Segway-like personal transporter. (Toyota took over Sony's robot division a year back.) It comes in three sizes and offers about a third the speed and a quarter the range of the Segway; on the upside, it charges in an hour vs. Segway's 10 hours. Wired writes: "The Winglet is the first gadget to duplicate the celebrated, and often mocked, navigation system of the Segway Transporter."

2 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Or you could just oh I don't know by Yetihehe · · Score: 3, Interesting

    With this winglet's 6km/h speed bicycle is also much faster. Also you can have some trunk space on bicycle, take small kid with you...

    --
    Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
  2. There is something to kill? by RockClimbingFool · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I am going to go out on a limb and state that the Segway has almost no real legitimate use.

    A bike is way more agile, and is able to cover a much wider assortment of areas.

    A bike is able to travel just as fast with little effort, and can travel faster if you want to put that much power into it.

    A bike doesn't need batteries.

    There are health benefits from this thing called "exercise."

    Now if you are talking about a battery powered vehicle that can travel on a road and get you back and forth to work, sign me up. Otherwise its simply a toy.