luckie
06-12-2006, 05:13 PM
The cutting edge of hype
http://www.examiner.net/stories/061206/ope_061206018.shtml
The Examiner, Jackson County, MO
June 12, 2006
The future has always been a good business.
Weren't we all supposed to be flying to work on personal aircraft by now, and wasn't the average work week supposed to have been down to 15 minutes. And why are we still bound by, you know, gravity? All of this was to have been addressed by the turn of the century. Or so we were told 20 or 30 years ago.
Remember the Segway, the one-person vehicle that looked as if it came straight off a sci-fi movie set? You stand on it , lean forward and off you go. Some mixture of gravity and electric generators made it work.
It was introduced to the world with great fanfare five years ago. It was going to change everything.
Well, not so much. Quickly, raise your hand if you've seen one of these in action. Fine. Keep your hand up if you've ridden one. Not too many hands. Has anyone out there actually bought one?
As it turns out, the Segway is really handy for one specific application cops patrolling shopping mall parking lots. They can get around well for lots of short jaunts on a hard, flat surface.
For the rest of us, where not every neighborhood has a sidewalk and taking the kids to soccer practice might involve a truckload of gear, the Segway isn't a practical reality. All sorts of scooters can be seen around town, but not this one.
We're still waiting for that one product that will radically transform the world and lead us to a bright new day, but sometimes the amount of hype seems inversely related to actual impact.
http://www.examiner.net/stories/061206/ope_061206018.shtml
The Examiner, Jackson County, MO
June 12, 2006
The future has always been a good business.
Weren't we all supposed to be flying to work on personal aircraft by now, and wasn't the average work week supposed to have been down to 15 minutes. And why are we still bound by, you know, gravity? All of this was to have been addressed by the turn of the century. Or so we were told 20 or 30 years ago.
Remember the Segway, the one-person vehicle that looked as if it came straight off a sci-fi movie set? You stand on it , lean forward and off you go. Some mixture of gravity and electric generators made it work.
It was introduced to the world with great fanfare five years ago. It was going to change everything.
Well, not so much. Quickly, raise your hand if you've seen one of these in action. Fine. Keep your hand up if you've ridden one. Not too many hands. Has anyone out there actually bought one?
As it turns out, the Segway is really handy for one specific application cops patrolling shopping mall parking lots. They can get around well for lots of short jaunts on a hard, flat surface.
For the rest of us, where not every neighborhood has a sidewalk and taking the kids to soccer practice might involve a truckload of gear, the Segway isn't a practical reality. All sorts of scooters can be seen around town, but not this one.
We're still waiting for that one product that will radically transform the world and lead us to a bright new day, but sometimes the amount of hype seems inversely related to actual impact.