Don’t Be Underwhelmed by Ginger

A lot of people are apparently underwhelmed by confirmation that Dean Kamen’s “Ginger” (now named Segway) turns out to be a glorified scooter. Steven Den Beste has a comparison between Kamen’s invention and already available mopeds (which, as he notes, are the real competitors to Segway). It’s hard to imagine much of a serious consumer market for Kamen’s invention.

On the other hand, this is the beauty of capitalism — let private entrepreneuers put up their own money and take on the risks (and potential rewards) for harebrained schemes. Who knows — Segway mania might sweep the country.

I doubt it, but I’m still excited by the product because if details about it are accurate, even if this particular product doesn’t succeed, there’s a lot of fascinating engineering here that will likely find its way into other inventions. My prediction is that Segway consumer sales go nowhere and the company turns to using its patents to assist other companies in implementing their technology (one thing that immediately comes to mind is putting some padding on these suckers, and creating a combination laser tag/bumper cars attraction).

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