Frank Tropea's e-mail took my attention to an interesting article on NY Times regarding Segway experience.
"The Segway Human Transporter is a 2-wheeled, self-balancing, electric powered personal transportation device designed to be used on sidewalks and in other pedestrian environments. It's also an environmentally friendly alternative to gas-guzzling cars and buses, intuitive and easy to use."
Segway works through a bunch of gyroscopes, tilt sensors, and microprocessors which sense its state and (i assume) generate appropriate signals and feed them back to the electric motors to keep it balanced. The way human body keeps its balance through the inner ear, eyes, brain and the muscles. Well, a little more complicated than just saying it! They say the balancing act is the most amazing thing about the Segway.
The question is: "Will Segway replace the car to be the next human transporter?". We sure will get our answer in the next few years, but what will make this happen? First of all, customer confidence plays a vital role for the success of Segay as well as many other new products in the market. Secondly, cost, cost and cost. Is it more expensive to drive a car or a Segway?
It certainly will require a huge investment to make people believe the device won't easily break and it's easy to fix in case it does. Customers don't see the working device but the broken one will quickly draw their attention, hence, there must be thousands of working devices around them to make them believe in the product.
Segway consumes electric power instead of gas energy and it makes it much more environment-friendly than a car (one reason Californians are gonna be among the first ones to use it!!). But is it cheaper to use electricity instead of gas? Electricity is a cleaner type of energy and it is more expensive than the equivalent in gas form, I believe. But segway is much lighter than a car (or even a bike), so it sure consumes less energy.
Despite the fact there still are uncertainties about Segway's new technology, it has been fairly popular. I was actually thinking of buying one when I saw the ads on amazon.com's first page to test drive it and see how sharp its turns are (I still think making sharp turns with such a device requires a cutting-edge technology!).
Segway is the biggest step towards saving the environment, and the first step of its kind in the transportation industry. Riding that must be a fantastic experience like riding a scooter, but it's not a scooter. I call it a "geek's scooter"! Thanks to Frank for generously offering me a Segway ride but I'm not gonna make him ride across the country all the way from NY to SF with his little Segway... (Or am I...?) :-)
