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...?) :-)
[Video Clips]
