IT'S HERE AND IT LOOKS GOOFY

IT'S HERE AND IT LOOKS GOOFY
Chicago Tribune: This is what $100 million buys you these days: A goofy-looking thingamabob big enough for a solo standing rider. Think lawnmower without the blades or pogo stick with giant wheels.
This is "IT," codename "Ginger," whose rumored existence created a bonanza of buzz when it leaked out about a year ago.
Now it's official and its New Hampshire inventor insists "IT" will revolutionize short-distance travel by filling the vacuum between walking and driving. Who knew there was a vacuum?
Dean Kamen, Ginger's father as it were, is no mad scientist. He's a serious inventor. Among his 100 or so patents are the portable dialysis machine, the first insulin pump, the heart stent that Vice President Dick Cheney is currently using and a wheelchair that climbs stairs -- initially codenamed Fred. (Get it? Fred and Ginger?)
He has serious backers who helped finance the $100 million development costs of the Segway Human Transporter, the official name of this device.
The Segway has a top speed of about 17 mph. It gets its stability from a gyroscope, making it virtually impossible to knock over, and its power from a battery. Riders control speed and direction by shifting their weight.
Orders: The consumer model will sell for $3,000 and a heavy-duty industrial model for $8,000. The U.S. Postal Service and National Park Service are already ordering up some and companies are exploring its use for getting around warehouses, factories and sprawling corporate campuses.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has ruled it isn't a vehicle. If that's the case, riders need no insurance and no license and "IT" can travel the sidewalks.
What happens if two Segways collide? Do they just bounce off each other and propel each other backward? What happens when it rains? Or snows? And are we really ready for the kind of revolution that adds more wheels to our sidewalks? Aren't scooters, skateboards and bicycle messengers (you know who you are) enough already? Maybe New Hampshire sidewalks have room for Gingers; Chicago's are already full.
But who knows? Kamen could be on to something. Maybe "IT" will indeed turn out to be as revolutionary "to the car (as) the car was to the horse and buggy," as he predicts in this week's Time.
Wright Brothers: After all, lots of people scoffed at Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and the Wright Brothers in their day. Now we couldn't live without their brainy ideas. So maybe "IT" will be like that. Or not.
Maybe "IT" will wheel itself into oblivion, over there with paper clothing, the electric hotdogger and all those other inventions that have one thing in common: It turned out we could, indeed, live without them.