Anybody hear about the new invention codenamed IT? Seems kinda cool, think it will revolutionize our travel?
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011203/ts/secret_invention.html
I myself want to stick to skateboards.
There is a two-page thread in GQ where people are talking about SHT, but since I have nothing to add but an opinion, here it goes:
This thing takes our current trend of sedentary and anti-ambulatory lifestyles to new lows. That’s the last thing this lazy overweight country needs. I predict that 95% of those who shell out $3G will have discovered that they’ve bought an expensive new toy that will soon be collecting dust in the garage as soon as the novelty wears off.
Having just read the article on it, I don’t think it’s going to take off. It says it travels at 12 mph. So if you work 12 miles from home, depending on the route you have to take, and traffic, you could be there in anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour. Using this, it’s going to take you at least an hour to get there, not counting stopping for traffic lights, slower speed up hills, etc. Unless you work fairly close to home and live in a very congested area, there’s really no need to shell out 3k for this little scooter. Just MHO
I think it’s great. The advantages I can see now - reducing pollution, reducing overcrowding in cities, not looking for a parking spot, and mobility for people who are physically unable to walk long distances - are great! And who knows how much this technology can evolve? I truly think it is going to change the way we live and move ourselves around.
Only through the rosiest of glasses.
If only. The problem is that this mode of “transportation” is viable only for very short distances, where only a small percentage of automobile pollution is generated. And as okielady points out (if I may make some corrections to her arithmetic), a 12 mile commute will take at least an hour on SHT. How many of those who presently have a 15 minute drive to work would be willing to spend $3G for the purpose of quadrupling their time sitting in traffic? Whoops- make that standing in traffic!
I don’t see how SHT will accomplish this. If anything, the sidewalks are crowded enough with just people on them. I can’t imagine SHTs battling for right of way and making tread marks on many toes.
Looking for a bike rack instead, and one that you feel safe locking a $3000 gadget to. By the way, does SHT have a locking mechanism? Does it need a key to start it? How do you tell your SHT from the hundreds (if they do end up becoming popular) other SHTs in the same bank of bike racks? Will they have license plates? Will riders need insurance?
This could be a practical use, but I’m not sure that people who are unable to walk any kind of distance would be able to stand well enough to be secure on the SHT. Being somewhat in that situation myself (I get very sore heels if standing for more than a few hours cumulative per day), I still think the machine will be more of a burden than a help.
Yes, there is always that. But so far $40 million hasn’t impressed me. This probably could have been put to better use in improving wheel chair design. But of course that wouldn’t have been as widely marketable (read: profitable) for Dean Kaman.
I hope not. As I said before, we don’t move around [under our own personal effort] as much as we should. The SHT will do for the chonically lethargic what the TV remote control did for couch potatoes.
I just wanna know what you do with the thing when its raining. Or when its 17 degrees and the wind is outta the north at 23 miles an hour.
The SHT might work great in Florida, but Minnesota in the wintertime? Or Seattle? I think not.
I can tell right now you are all a bunch of young whipper-snappers! I am of an age that I can envision when I won’t be able to walk far or even drive. A friend of my mother’s just had her driving privileges revoked and it is a crisis for her obviously, as she has always been independent. She can’t even drive to the store. But she could stand up and negotiate this, and since it can’t fall over, the chances she would kill someone (or herself) are slim. The other thing is that my father can’t drive anymore and my mother is very worried when and if the day comes that she can’t drive as well. All of us children live thousands of miles away. And she informed me the other day that we would have to make some arrangements if that happens. I don’t have any idea what I would do as there are no senior transport services in their area. Could this at least get her to the store? Or even to the nearest bus stop?
I live on an island in northern Maine and we have a couple of people that drive the streets with one of those motorized thing-a-ma-bobs (with the American flag now flying). We don’t have enough traffic to worry about. But those things are very expensive and have to be maintained. This scooter would be a god-send just for going to church, to the grocery store, around the village to visit friends, or downtown to the local cafe. Of course, as Buck said, it won’t be much use here for about 4 months of the year. But once April hits watch out. I don’t care about rain. I think it has great possiblities for rural areas. Also, I have driven across this country many times and in some of the northern states I’ve driven for hours, once for a whole day (April, 1998), and never seen another car, so some areas like mine are rural and don’t have traffic problems. Farmers could use them to work around the spread without using the pickup for every little run.
And wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could get just some of the cars off the road in the congested areas, like for example, where my parents live there is a five-mile commuter back-up twice a day on the I-80 corridor in Northern California; and in LA? Right now local government is about to spend millions on another route to divert traffic off Rt. 80 but they know it will only maintain the situation as it won’t be completed for five years. I know that it would probably take 10-20 years or more in some areas to accomodate our way of life to a new mode of transportation, but it would be worth it.
A battery-powered scooter? Who’d shell out three grand for a scooter? It wouldn’t even work most of the year here in Edmonton*. It isn’t even totally environmentally sound if the electricity used to charge the battery is generated in a coal, gas, or oil power plant. It looks like it combines all of the disadvantages of a bicycle with a lack of exertion and a need for electricity (a valuable resource). I do not approve.
*Fun Fact! Cold weather car batteries need to be over 50 times the voltage needed to start a car at normal temperatures, because at -40°, a battery functions at less than 2% of its normal power.
Can you really do a 12-hour commute through rush hour traffic in 15 minutes? There are many cities in the world - including the one I live in - where a 12-minute commute takes an hour by car. Maybe more if you need to find parking space then walk from there to the office. Since the Segway will not be bound by traffic jams, it may be faster than cars in those cities.
It’s not a problem if you are using the device outside, because batteries generate a lot of heat and keep themselves warm. Storing it in a cold garage may cause problems, but it’s small that you can store it in your house.
Well, I’ve been ragging on this thing long enough - I don’t think it’ll ever be a mass people mover for lots of reasons.
However, there are a TON of niche markets that could really use this device. People who have to walk on the job (beat cops, postal carriers, couriers, factory workers, mine workers, you name it) could really benefit from it. The previous example of elderly people is another obvious market. My mother lives by herself and has never learned to drive. A Segway would be a substantial improvement in her mobility.
There’s probably enough demand in niche markets to soak up sales of thousands or tens of thousands of these things. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they have pre-orders for thousands of units already.
I think you’ll be seeing Segways around. But they’ll be in the hands of professionals who use them in their jobs, plus the odd private one. And every factory might have a handful scattered around so that a worker can jump on one and get across the factory more quickly and efficiently.
Those markets alone make this thing a revolution.
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Yep, thats the way I like 'em.
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What if you had no choice? What if cars were banned from city centers? Do you really think that traffic is going to get better the way its going now?
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Sidewalks will be redesigned. The ywill be wider, due to the fact that the streets won’t be open to automobiles.
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Nope. You will ride your Segway right up to your desk. As well as into the library, into your doctor’s office, right into the grocery store. It is to be classified as a non-motor vehicle, the same as you own two legs. Think of it as an extension of your legs.
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It is very balanced, that is part of the ‘oh, WOW’ factor. You couldn’t tip it unless you try very hard.
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Think of the people who can gain mobility with a Segway and who won’t face the humiliation of a wheelchair. As far as we’ve come, there still is a certain stigma attached to the handicapped.
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People who currently exercise for fitness will continue to do so. people who are lazy will not. Nothing will change that, certainly not the Segway.
And further, anything that will relieve our dependance on Mideast oil is a good thing IMHO. I hate being a slave to the gas pump.
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Sam, you don’t want to give up your gas-guzzler, do ya? Personally, I wish we could go back to horses, but I know that’s not going to happen.
No, in fact I don’t. I like every fume-belching kilogram of it. What’s more, I don’t like having my personal transportation decisions dictated to by ‘urban planners’ and bureaucrats.
Every day I go to work, I have to take my daughter to school as well. I cannot use one of these things. In your utopian city, my life will be substantially more difficult. I will be cold much of the time, I will lose two hours of my life every day, and I will wake up every morning dreading a weather report of rain or cold.
There are many, many people like me. So many that we have enough clout to prevent enlightened intelligentsia like yourself from taking away our personal vehicles. That means you’ll have to maintain the roads and won’t be able to ban cars from the city. In the meantime, the early adopters who try to drive this thing to work every day will discover that it truly sucks as an auto replacement, and either go back to driving or try another solution. But there’s plenty of market for these things - as much as the company can probably manufacture, so what’s your gripe?
Sam, it’s not going to be an auto replacement. If you need to take your kid to school, or if you don’t like the rain, by all means take your car. It is going to be an addition to the auto; like the subway, or the bus. Many people simply want to get to work (and don’t have the kid or the rain to worry about) and that is where the Segway will come in. We need to break our dependance on gas-engines. The time has come to start developing the new technology. The Segway is just the start of things to come.
Suzie, I don’t disagree with you, and I’m not certain whether this new scooter is all it’s cracked up to be. But I will say that for commuters in Los Angeles, it’s utterly impractical. Most people in the greater L.A. area drive a lot further than 12 miles to get to work. There are a large number of people who live in Lancaster/Palmdale and commute to the San Fernando Valley – or even further south – and that’s a 35-mile trip each way. I would love to see L.A.'s traffic problems clear up, but even if every single person in that area who commuted less than 15 miles were to use the SHT, it would still be a mess.
for less than $3k, you can get a nice motorcycle that pollutes less, takes up less space yada yada yada…
ah, forget it! this will never catch on!
i think the one on south park was much funnier!
That’s where the idea for IT came from. They built an incredible wheel chair (It can go up stairs on its own, raise the operator to eye level height, and other things.), to me it seems like Kaman’s building these in hopes that he can lower the cost of the wheel chairs (which is something like $20,000). I really can’t see a lot of people buying these. Maybe some businesses, some people who have mobility issues, and “gadget freaks,” but that’s about it.
It wouldn’t work for Los Angeles job-commuting, because everything is so spread out here, but it would work for short hops to the supermarket, drugstore, or local mall. For more densely-packed cities (San Francisco, NYC, Chicago, etc.), the Segway would definietly be useful – ride it from home to your local subway stop, hop on the subway, get off at the station near work, then zip to work.
And considering that the inventor of the Segway is an avowed car collector, I seriously doubt he intends for it to replace the automobile.
The promotional vid says, “If you can walk there, this device will take you there.”
I detect a problem: stairs. 
Granted, the inventor did build a stair-climbing wheelchair, but nowhere in the vids and pages I’ve seen are there any mentions of what the Segway does (if indeed it can do anything) on encountering stairs.
The implication is that we will use sidewalks, pathways, rampways, elevators, and corridors, and go straight to our destinations inside buildings.
It’ll definitely be useful in niche markets, such as in large warehouses. There are versions with a bar across the front, that helps to support a couple of pannier-like bags, one above each wheel. And one of the factory scenes has it towing a train of little trailers.
But…
Can this thing ride an escalator? Can you go through a revolving door with it? How about a turnstile? Will it be subject to the same restrictions as other person-sized wheels (rollerblades, skateboards, etc)?
Etiquette: this’ll make the ‘tracking of mud into the house’ thing even worse…
Now, we just put an inflatable bubble on this to keep out the weather, add a fuel-cell battery to give more power, put some mud/snow tires on it, and increase the clearance of the fenders, and we might have an outside-capable version that could be used for the non-winter parts of the year in Canada…
Is anyone else reminded of the ‘doodlebugs’, the little one-wheeled scooters used by service staff to travel through the machinery of the mechanical moving roads, in The Roads Must Roll by Heinlein?
I can’t wait to see the city teenagers putting ground effects and spoilers with “V-Tech” stickers on those. The most commonly asked questions from kids will be “can it be lowered?” lmao.