Ok, I’ve seen photos of Segways, but what’s the amazing thing about them? They look like Jetson-esque scooters to me. How do they operate? Are they hand or foot powered, do they have a gyroscope in them or something, or do they run by a motor that will eventually cause the driver’s legs to become vestigial organs b/c they’d never have to use them again? I’m curious.
You’ve pretty much got it nailed. A “Jetson-esque scooter” is precisely what the Segway is. It fills the same niche as mopeds and motor scooters. Notice how you don’t see too many of those, either. It uses a gyroscope so it doesn’t fall over, and I think it runs on a rechargable battery.
Heh.
Was this the invention that was being kept secret a few years back, that was nicknamed “Ginger”, and the only thing revealed about it was that it would “change the world”?
If so, double heh.
Indeed it was- heavily touted in advance on Coast to Coast AM, and after it’s unveiling, I think even Noory’s reaction was “That’s it?”
He also referred to the Segway as “it.” Here on the SDMB, we spent quite some time speculating on what “it” might be, and how it would change the world.
In the end, “it” was marketing hype.
Why did this not go anywhere? I know little about firearms, but this rifle seems like an advancement of several generations beyond others in use at the time.
The Ferguson Rifle was a huge advance but it was never improved upon or otherwise developed. When breech-loaded firearms finally started to be widely developed, in the 1850’s, better and faster breech locking methods than the vertical screw were devised.
My work computer has blocks on it to prevent viewing site dedicated to firearms or weapons. (Hooray for the Personnel Dept’s ineffective anti-violence program! :rolleyes: ) However, examining several sources suggests that Ferguson was injured at the Battle of King’s Mountain, & did not recover in time to continue promoting his experimental rifle design. The reactionary nature of the era’s military officers did all that was neccessary to kill a great idea.
Who says it flopped?
It is still used in some of the older VTR’s, but has been superceded by the internet.
So you’re saying you *know * about VTR’s (VCR’s) that can be remotely programmed by phone? What models?
The only think I remember about this is one ad that I saw in a magazine about 15 years ago.
Also, I don’t understand what you mean when you say that it “has been superceded by the internet.” Can you program your VTR through the internet? (I’m not talking about TiVo or a PVR - Personal Video Recorder.)
That’s because if their face appears, by union rules, the actor is paid quite a bit more than for just a ‘voice-over’ part.
I have no idea what Star Trek you are watching. View screens for ship to ship communication are insanely common devices on the all the shows.
I submit Fisher Price Pixel-Vision. It was a video camera for kids that recorded heavily pixelated video onto audio cassettes. I assume it died out because home video cameras became so cheap and accessible that a kiddie version was unneccessary.
Newton might have evolved, but according to Steve Jobs’ biography, Steve promptly killed it when he returned to Apple, largely because Newton was the pet project of John Sculley, the CEO who ran Jobs out of his own company some years earlier.
I see I mentioned two waves of tablet computers. Since then, the third wave has been highly successful.
A few people mentioned videophones. At a flea market last month, I bought a Mitsubishi Luma. (I collect obsolete technology)
It could send one black and white still picture every six seconds.
It did not work as a phone unless it was plugged into an outlet. So, the thing was useless during outages.
Stopwatch, egg timer, day/date, alarm, etc.
Usually, the instructions on how to set them were in reverse Chinese-which lead to people giving them away.
Oddly, I have seen a few new LED watches-I guess they don’t eat batteries the way they did.
I got a Nimslo 3-D camera in 1986 - it took 3D pictures on 35mm film that were printed with a lenticular grid so you could see the 3D effect without special glasses.
Nimslo camera
The downfall was the time to print and the cost. Plus the 3D effect wasn’t all that great.
You can still find them on eBay and there’s a place in Canada that will still develop 3D prints.
Any discussion about videophones needs a copy of DuMaurier’s 1878 drawing that predated anyone’s proposed videophone or television system, AFAIK. There were real suggestions on building such a device a couple of years after this picture, but to my knowledge none of them predates the cartoon:
That, and they sucked. I had one at a job, we wanted to use it for a product we were developing for gas field workers. Problem was the thing was nigh-on useless; it didn’t do even the basic functionality you’d expect. It was a bad product.
They tried to market this as a disposable camera, too – I bought and used a couple of them. The 3D really isn’t bad.
If you’re into this, there are places you can buy software that will take a stereo pair of photos and interleave them so that you can place them behind a lenticular plastic sheet 9there are places thsat sell these, too – some as photo holders) and thus make your own 3D lenticular picture.
The upshot is that, even if Nimslo and its disposable counterpart had survived, they’d be dead now because you can do it all on a home computer.
Now, cellphone got the jillion functions.