Gameboy70
Member
Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Metro Station, Hollywood and Highland
Posts: 1018 |
Like homer, I wonder what problem the Segway is intended to solve. For the same price, a college student could buy a used car. For one-fifth the price you can buy a quality commuter bike.
I also question the energy efficiency of the scooter, even at 5 cents of electricity a day. How much of that power goes into the gyroscope assembly, the sensors and the sisterboards just to keep the thing upright? That power would be better spent on forward propulsion, and the balancing could be accomplished easily, if less glamourously, with a third wheel in the rear.
I have no idea what cut of the $100m development costs go to Kamen, but the whole marketing aspect seems like a confidence game. It's no surprise that an inventor would champion his own creation as a paradigm shift. That Time, CNN and the rest of the "legitimate" press and media should be so easily diverted from the fact that they're reporting on an overpriced scooter -- I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Kamen might actually believe this thing will change the world, since engineers regularly equate ingenuity with utility. Sometimes being smart has its disadvantages.
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12-08-2001 09:18 AM
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