Was the Segway really IT?

[GameMaster]

Rumors: Segway isn't really Ginger
By Graham Hayday
Special to ZDNet
August 19, 2002, 7:37 AM PT

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 subtley 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." (See www.nytimes.com/2001/12/20/technology/circuits/20DIAR.html - registration re quired.)

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.

Well, I for one am excited. In a couple years I could be hovering to college. Driving, pffft, that's so 20th century. :D ;) What do you guys think?

[Angrist]

Hmmm... I wonder how cheap that could be, hovering. Perhaps they've discovered something in the quantum-mechanica. (read Crichton's Timeline and you'll see what I'm taling about. BTW it's a nice book)

[Xantar]

I think the Segway is Ginger. Yeah, it was hyped up, but Dean Kamen himself said that there was too much hype about the thing. And if there are inconsistencies between the writings of a journalist and the actual thing, is that more likely to be the fault of the journalist or the fact? As for the rest, I'll wait to hear more details.

In any case, even if IT turns out to be a hovercraft, that's hardly going to be more important than the internet. The most that can happen is we start flying to work like in The Fifth Element or that city in Star Wars (which would mean we'd have more accidents due to people not being able to think in three dimensions and that those accidents are more likely to be fatal since a broken vehicle would fall from high up. But never mind that). So we get where we want to go faster. We've been doing that for centuries now.

By the way, Timeline was a good read, but I don't consider it to be fine writing. Crichton has a tendency to inject murder and deceit where it isn't needed, and that was true of Timeline as much as any other book. But he does do his homework, and he's very good at mixing real science with a little fiction to produce a theory that sounds plausible to the average reader. His quantum mechanics don't quite work out in the book, but it was a game try nonetheless.

And if you want to know why his theory doesn't work, consider the fact that the time travellers are essentially going to another dimension in order to travel through time. That is, they are going to a dimension where it happens that the world developed a 100 years later than it did in our dimension and thus it is the year 1902 there instead of 2002. All well and good, but how would someone from that dimension be able to affect our present? If he leaves a pair of glasses and a note in the past, it will reach the present in that other dimension, not ours. We'd never know about it. But in Timeline, there are several instances of the time travellers affecting our present through their actions.

[Angrist]

Yeah I know, it doesn't make sense. But Crichton said on the last page that the scientists can find his story amusing, but won't believe it to be true. Or something like that.

I also found it weird that they sent the professor to the universe where that Robert Deckar (?) also was. It was like they could only sent them to 1dimension, so the later you went into it, the later you arrived... if you know what I mean. Deckar had been sent there a year ago, and he had been there for a year. Then they sent in the prof, and then they read the note and the same day the sent in the 'team'.

But they had the posibillity to send ppl to places/times with the plague, so... bah it just doesn't make sense.

And with timetravelling, you keep thinking 'if the mission failed, why don't they go back even earlier to warn themselves??' :distress:

[GameMaster]

Well, what a stroke of good luck. I just got finished reading that book while I was on vacation. I really liked it. Xantar's right. To the common folkster like myself, the theory he produces sounds like it could work but we all know that time travel won't be discovered until 2008--uh I mean well... :sneaky: *puts on shades* :cool: *flash of light* You know nothing of time travel. You spend your life on the internet posting in many forums. That is all. ;)

A question I'd like to bring up is why don't they go back and save Gomez and that other guy who got arrowed up? A comment I'd like to make is if I were Chris, after returning and taking care of Doniger, I would have gone back but this time with some modern weopons, and I would have found all those people who were beating him, killing him, etc. and whooped their a$$. But I guess going back would really mess things up because then they see themselves and then they would help those people and then all that original stuff would have never happened.

[GameKinG]

I do think we may have things that hover like a foot in the air (the benefits of that, I dont know), but nothing that flys. Its just unsafe.

[Mushlafa]

Originally posted by GameKinG
I do think we may have things that hover like a foot in the air (the benefits of that, I dont know.
You wont have any problems goin over a curb?