12/3/2001

I don’t know how many of you were able to watch Good Morning America this morning or how many of you have been following the hype surrounding the product announced on the show this morning.The product is called the Segway Human Transport. No, it’s not a GoPed. It’s way more sophisticated than that. The Segway HT, as it’ll now be called, uses sophisticated gyroscopes and computer chips to establish a balance that is hard to describe. Well, let’s just say that you really have to work at falling over. It’ll travel at a top speed of 17 mph for up to 11 miles on a single charge obtained by plugging into a normal wall outlet.It moves through subtle movements by the rider. Shift your weight slightly forward and it goes forward. Shift a little left and it turns left. Again, it’s very hard to describe although someone said that it’s like skiing without the snow. Several sites examine the innovative transport device. The plan is to produce it for government and corporate entities first, like the Postal Service and FedEx, and later for consumers. The price is expected to be $3,000 (though I’m sure it’ll drop as production increases).