segway

Dean Kamen, the engineer who invented the Segway, started out by inventing a wheelchair that can climb stairs. Many people felt that after this, the Segway was an anti-climax, and they haven’t done well on the market. But Kamen’s new idea, two devices that will bring electricity and clean water to rural third-world villages, could be inventions of major importance.

Erick Schonfeld reports that 1.1 billion people still don’t have access to electricity or clean drinking water. Kamen has invented two devices, each about the size of a washing machine, that can change all that. The water purifier creates 1,000 liters of clean water per day, no matter what kind of water you put into it. The power generator creates a kilowatt of electricity out of anything combustible.
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Weren’t we supposed to stop walking and driving and startusing Segways instead? Despite all the hype about this newinvention, it remains just a toy?and an expensive one, atthat. They’ve been purchased by a few post offices and bysome businesses with large warehouses, but that’s about it.One problem is that most municipalities have made it illegalto drive a Segway on either the street or the sidewalk.
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It’s a scene we’d all love to see on the evening news: a battle where soldiers aren’t in tanks, Humvees or Bradley fighting vehicles?they’re riding circles around the enemy on their Segways.

Michael P. Regan writes in space.com that we may see it a version of this someday, since the Pentagon is planning to base battlefield robots on the Segway model. These robots could search out the enemy, especially in dangerously mined areas, take injured soldiers to safety or haul heavy gear.

Pentagon procurement would caused a big jump in Segway sales. So far only 6,000 of them have been sold, probably because they cost between $4,000 and $5,000 and most cities won’t let you ride them either in the street or on the sidewalk.
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You hear the siren and see the flashing lights out of the corner of your eye?not another ticket! You pull over and along comes?a cop on a Segway scooter?

It could happen to you in Atlanta, where the police are riding the new $9,000 scooters. The police have invested in a battalion of Segway Human Transporter vehicles. The battery-powered, two-wheeled scooters can go a maximum speed of 15 mph, so they?ll be best for chasing muggers and purse-snatchers.
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