Scooter 'Ginger' like 'a pair of magic sneakers'

Gauracandra · December 3, 2001

I don't have anything against this invention, but I must say the absolute hype behind it is ridiculous. We have idiots like Steve Jobs claiming that cities will be built around this machine, and that its as revolutionary as the PC and the internet.

Basically its a cute little scooter. Rich little yuppies will buy it in order to out do their neighbors. But it aint going to do away with the automobile. The hyperbole has just been beyond silly, and that disturbs me a bit. If you want to see what it looks like check out:

http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,319820-412,00.shtml

Other sites have good pictures as well. I guess the one cool part is the gyroscopic ability to continually rebalance to prevent any tipping.

Scooter 'Ginger' like 'a pair of magic sneakers'

December 3, 2001 Posted: 5:25 PM EST (2225 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- After months of speculation, the elusive gizmo referred to as "IT" or "Ginger" has been unveiled to the public.

The ABC television program "Good Morning America" demonstrated the invention Monday, a two-wheeled, self-propelled scooter that can travel at about 12 mph.

Ginger is the work of the New Hampshire entrepreneur Dean Kamen, who invented a plastic kidney dialysis machine and later a versatile wheelchair that climbs stairs and stands on two wheels.

Kamen said the two-wheeled scooterlike vehicle is "like a pair of magic sneakers" because the passenger moves by thinking forward or backward -- as if walking -- without falling.

"This is the world's first self-balancing human transporter," Kamen said. "It does what a human does -- it has gyros and sensors that act like your inner ear; it has a computer that does what your brain does for you.

"It's got motors that do what your muscles do for you. It's got those tires that do what your feet do for you."

Kamen said the invention -- called the Segway HT -- will be going out in limited quantities over the next few weeks, and by the end of next year, it should be widely available. The price is expected to be around $3,000.

Kamen's invention has won over some bigwigs in California's Silicon Valley who have seen Ginger and reportedly thrown money behind it, according to initial reports in January on the news Web site Inside.com.

Proponents of Segway say it will change the way cities are built.

Investing icon John Doerr has called Kamen a blend of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Apple Computer's Steve Jobs was quoted as saying that people will erect entire cities around "IT." Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has taken a special liking to the invention, featuring it on Amazon's Web site.

News of Ginger was first uncovered when it was revealed that the Harvard Business School Press had offered Kamen $250,000 to chronicle the making of Ginger in a book with the help of a writer. Kamen's work is based out of a Manchester, New Hampshire, lab called DEKA Research & Development.

Gauracandra · December 4, 2001

What's 'IT' All About?

Scooter May Be a Letdown, But Tech Transformation of Society Won't Be

Commentary By Michael S. Malone

Editor-at-Large, Forbes ASAP

One of the most protracted product unveilings in modern business history occurred Monday morning, when after more than a year of rumors — planted and otherwise — Web sites and endless hype, inventor extraordinaire Dean Kamen unveiled his new invention, variously known over the last few months as IT, Ginger, and now Segway.

The response to this new personal scooter/people mover, which looks like a cross between a push mower and a weed whacker, was a resounding, "Oh. … Okay." This was the invention that was supposed to change the world? A self-balancing scooter?

Amateurish PR, But So What?

Actually, my first reaction, having once been in corporate PR, followed by 20 years of attending new product unveilings as a reporter, was: Kamen and his Krew had a year to get ready for this announcement, and this was all they could come up with? I've seen better sewage treatment plant opening ceremonies. Didn't these guys ask Steve Jobs when he visited how to do this kind of thing with panache?

But then, on reflection, I had a change of heart. What really was wrong, after all, with an amateurish product introduction? I don't remember reading about Thomas Edison renting a stadium to announce the incandescent light bulb, or Henry Ford hiring models to drape themselves over his first car in some Dearborn convention hall.

The fact is, ever since the Macintosh introduction (which, trust me, was a lot cruder than the legend has it) we've become jaded, equating the importance of the product with the cost of its coming out party.

The last few years should have disabused us of that notion. After all, how many millions were spent on light shows and booze and rock stars to introduce already forgotten Web sites and new economy magazines?

So, at least in PR terms, give Kamen some credit: He was artful in his artlessness. He had the courage (or the marketing incompetence) to present his product stripped of pretense.

Bested by the Techie Imagination

Okay, but what about IT itself? Obviously, we'll have to wait to see Segway in real use to judge its true worth. But for now I confess to being ambivalent.

On one hand, it's something of a let-down. One of the dangers of being mysterious about a new invention is that the imaginations of millions of techies become your worst enemy.

Most of the guesses I read on Web sites and bulletin boards when IT was first leaked were far more interesting the final, actual product. Compared to say, a personal, fuel cell-powered helicopter, Segway is pretty prosaic stuff.

There was also something repellent about Kamen, as he developed his volkscooter for the masses, taking it on a grand tour of American billionaires and giving only them, the illuminati of high tech, private viewings.

Screaming Teens, Busted Sidewalks

Finally, and most important, the appearance of Segway raises a ton of practical questions.

Let's assume that it can do everything Kamen claims for it: self balance, cruise along at 12-17 mph, respond to the operator's every nuanced move. How reliable is it? What happens if one of the gyros cuts out while you're rolling down the sidewalk at a considerable clip? Does the nose pitch forward and fling you off to do end-o's for 70 feet? Can it navigate over real life obstacles like high manhole covers and broken sidewalks?

Then there are the infrastructural problems. Do we really want people — i.e., teenagers — screaming down city sidewalks like a million bike messengers? Or, conversely, do we really want all of those people out in the street amidst whizzing SUVs and delivery trucks?

And I don't even want to think about the potential legal implications of Segway — figure on the first fatality sometime in May 2003 — but it must have personal injury lawyers everywhere rubbing their hands with glee.

Thus, it would seem that for Segway to go from being a popular novelty to the revolution Kamen wants it to be would require a massive rebuilding of cities, tearing out roads and replacing them with ultrawide pedestrian/scooter sidewalks. This is no doubt what Jobs meant in his much publicized comment about IT, and why folks like Bezos and Doerr expressed admiration for the product, but didn't invest.

My guess? Segway will sell in the hundreds of thousands over the next couple years. It will make Kamen very rich. But it will not revolutionize society.

The Real Revolution?

Having said that, there is one thing more, a deeper and more intuitive sense I have about what Kamen has wrought. Twenty years from now we will look back and realize that Segway was indeed the opening salvo of a social transformation.

The electronics world has spent 50 years driving digital technology to unimaginable levels of accomplishment. The modern microprocessor, produced by the billions each year, holds more than five million transistors and can perform a billion computations per second. This is one of the most glorious achievements in human history.

But for all that it has accomplished, the digital revolution still has one huge weakness: its ability to interface with the natural, analog world. PCs can devise whole worlds on their monitors, but require expensive sensors and transmitters to tell you what the temperature is of the bathwater in the next room.

That is going to change. Arguably, the great tech story of the next 50 years will be the digital to analog connection. We're ready: The modern processor is so fast that it can pretty precisely imitate natural events. Thanks to Moore's Law, chips will only get better at the task.

We had a first glimpse of this with the Stealth Bomber, an aircraft that literally can't fly without the aid of scores of processors adjusting trim and thrust every microsecond. But that was the rarified world of top-secret Black Box defense.

Now, with Dean Kamen and his self-balancing, responsive Segway, this new reality is about to be in the hands of everyone. What we will do with it will be astounding.

In that respect, Kamen may get his revolution after all.

Gauracandra · December 6, 2001

Here is their website if you'd like to check it out:

www.segway.com

Gauracandra · August 21, 2002

When this news story first broke I was really disappointed. Not because it was a bad invention. It was perfectly fine. But everyone, all the media, seemed to be in on a conspiracy to hype this thing way out of proportion. I was hearing stuff like "This is going to be bigger than the internet...", "It will change our entire world...", and everyone seemed to be repeating this. Then out came a self balancing scooter that goes 15 miles per hour... Woo hooo!!! Yippeee!!! Lets hope that this guy really does have something revolutionary, because the Segway just isn't that great.

Rumors: Segway isn't really Ginger

New conspiracy theories emerge on Dean Kamen invention

By Graham Hayday

ZDNET

Aug. 19 In the latest twist to the long-running Ginger saga, it's now being rumored that the two-wheeled device unveiled by inventor Dean Kamen last December isn't in fact the real deal. According to a posting on the ginger-chat.com site, the Segway Human Transporter (SHT for short) cannot be the same thing as the much-hyped mystery invention originally known as Ginger and IT.

THE CLAIM REVOLVES around inconsistencies between the description of Ginger contained in publicity for a book written by journalist Steve Kemper and the actual scooter-like invention. There are also some alleged patent irregularities.

The book is yet to hit the shelves, but back in January 2001 Kemper let it be known that such figures as Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos believed the invention would radically change the way we live.

Then Segway was unveiled and the world said: "Is that it?"

Since then, ginger-chat site administrator Spliff has examined Kemper's book proposal in some detail, and has taken a fine-tooth comb to the patents Kamen has registered, and found significant evidence to suggest Segway is not the thing which blew Bezos and Jobs away.

Kemper's book proposal seems to suggest that Kamen began work on Segway in 1995, but no serious development took place until 1998. And yet a patent for a similar device was filed in 1994.

As Spliff writes: "US patent number 5,701,965 shows an early variation of the Segway Human Transporter, similar to the one later found in the newer Segway scooter patents. THIS patent was filed on May 27, 1994. And my timeline shows that Kamen first conceived GINGER around December 1995."

Another posting on the ginger-chat site points out that the series of images of the machine on the official Segway.com site changed subtly in June this year. Originally, there was a bloke standing on the now-familiar two-wheeled scooter now, there is one image which appears to be the same bloke floating above the ground.

This has reignited all the original speculation that the invention is some kind of personal hovercraft.

The conspiracy theorists also claim Bob Metcalfe, founder of 3Com and someone not known for participating in hoaxes, also claims to have seen Ginger and says it's not Segway.

Metcalfe told the New York Times earlier this year: "Some months ago when speculation was running high, I said that Kamen's IT was more important than the Internet, but not as important as cold fusion, had cold fusion worked out. The IT I was talking about, which I did not disclose, was NOT Segway. That's all I can say."

However, this could still be more hot air. And the Ginger story has already contained more than enough of that.

So to conclude: there is no conclusion... but when/if there is one, we'll let you know.