Segway: Don't call it a scooter. What travels at speeds of up to 12.5 miles an hour and could change minds about the future of human transportation? Dean Kamen explains his latest creation, as well as what it's like to be a famous inventor. [CNET News.com: Personal Technology]
Dean wants this thing to be avaialble around to world to all economic classes. That is a fine dream, but it costs $3-5000.00 US. I like Dean's body of work, but I think he's being a bit short sighted here.
- This device costs more than many people make in a year. While it might be possible to pull this off in the US, a third world nation's population would not have the money to afford one.
- Infrastructure. These devices need power, and can travel up to 17 miles between charges. Unless he is working on a charging station that uses solar power or wind, I don't see how an area with an unreliable grid can support it.
- It's new-fangled. Unless the device can dramatically improve the quality of life of the people that adopt it, they are not going to bother. If local government were to subsidize these to be used like bicycles are in some areas, that would be one thing, if not, citizens are on their own.
- (Added at 1:13 Eastern) Back on the issue of power grids; We need reliable power for this or any other technology (electric cars, et al) that is going to get us off of dependence on petroleum. I would love to see what Kamen could do with that issue. be it a safer form of Nuclear power using a modified Sterling engine to drive the generators, or something that has not yet been dreamed up.
I'd love to see this succeed, as I think that the Segway is way cool tech that I would like to have (I'll take an e Series, thanks) once the price drops to the $1000.00 US range. For now though, the dream of this being in the hands of all remains just that, a dream
12:12:59 PM 
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