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Dec. 8, 2001
Did you hear the news? Did you feel the buzz? This past week a celebrated inventor finally pulled the wraps off his latest
creation.
He predicted it would be the greatest thing since sliced bread and microwave popcorn.
The privileged few who he'd taken into his inner sanctum boasted it would be the next BIG THING, even bigger than the
personal computer and the Internet.
Speculation ran wild. Was it a new interactive video gaming device? Was it a flying car? Was it an undersea bullet train?
A new and better Pop-Tart, perhaps?
The hype and drumroll began nearly a year ago when someone (probably the inventor himself) leaked just enough information
about the ultra secret project to a tech Web site to get the masses to salivate and wonder.
This new thing was wrapped in so much secrecy it was known only by the codenames "IT" and "Ginger."
And so on Monday with the world watching, Dean Kamen did the unveiling.
TA-DA!
It's a damned scooter.
The Segway Human Transporter doesn't hover. It doesn't produce food. It doesn't cure cancer.
It's a scooter, and a goofy looking one at that.
Revolutionary? Hardly.
Kamen told Time magazine his one-person scooter "will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy."
Right. And in a minute monkeys will fly out of my ... but I digress.
I hate to bad-mouth the guy because he is truly innovative and has created some pretty fantastic things, including the
first portable kidney dialysis machine.
But with the Segway, Kamen has hit a foul ball.
Kamen and his wide-eyed supporters have high hopes for the Segway and proclaim with the gusto of a young Muhammed Ali
that the scooter will replace awkward, polluting cars, leading to a realigned cityscape that is more people-friendly.
Right, and I'm the Queen of England.
This thing is just silly. It looks like an old rotary lawn mower with bicycle handlebars and two Yugo-sized tires.
The Segway uses gyroscopes and computers to mimic the human body's sense of balance. People lean forward to move forward,
lean back to go in reverse, and turn by twisting the handle.
It's not the next BIG THING. It's been done before. Time's story was appropriately titled "Reinventing the Wheel."
Kamen worked on "IT" for more than a decade, ringing up more than $100 million in development costs.
It's a damned scooter with batteries.
The Time article poses the question: "Will the average consumer buy IT"?
"If it's seen as sufficiently cool, they might," the article says.
This thing is light-years from being cool. The eggheads from the science club will drool over it, but normal people will
laugh.
Here's why the Segway will become tomorrow's Pet Rock: It looks stupid.
It's nerdy. The dork factor looms high. It might as well come with a little sign, "Dorkmobile," and the rider
could wear a shirt saying, "Hey, look at me! I wasted $3,000 on this stupid scooter and sold my car!"
I don't care if you put Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston in matching thongs atop a pair of Segways, "IT" will
still not be cool.
And there are all sorts of other practical problems with the Segway, like where are you going to hang the fuzzy dice?
Sadly, the Segway will go the way of other good ideas gone bad.
"IT" will join the mood ring graveyard and be buried next to the Edsel, New Coke, steel-studded tires, Oreos
Double Stuff, moon boots and Jarts.
The Wonder Bra, now that was innovation.
That is all.
John Charles Robbins is a Sentinel staff writer.
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