Mystery Invention 'Ginger' Has Tech World Buzzing

Thursday, January 11, 2001

By Eric Auchard

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A planned book about a mysterious invention said to be more important than the World Wide Web and capable of generating fantastic riches has gripped a down-on-its-luck technology industry in need of a miracle.

Harvard Business School Press is said to have paid $250,000 for a book detailing "IT," a device code-named "Ginger" that is set to be unveiled next year by millionaire inventor Dean Kamen.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Kamen, 49, declined to reveal much on the device other than saying: "While our projects are in the development phase and have client confidentiality requirements, it is impossible for us to comment further."

Details of the machine are contained in a book proposal by journalist Steve Kemper, a freelance writer for publications such as Smithsonian, a popular scientific magazine for which the author profiled Kamen in 1994.

Inside.com, the Web site of the recently launched media gossip magazine, was first to report the story on Tuesday.

Much of what is known about Ginger is what it's not.

The invention is said to take just 10 minutes to assemble using simple tools. Ginger machines may cost less than $2,000 a piece when they debut in 2002, Inside.com said.

With headlines bristling with news of the end of the personal computer era and the destruction of many dotcom businesses, the technology industry has redoubled its irrepressible search for the next big thing.

Technology leaders like as Apple Computer Co. (AAPL.O) co-founder Steve Jobs, Amazon.com (AMZN.O) founder Jeff Bezos and top venture capitalist John Doerr are said to have been enthralled by a demonstration of a prototype device and to have invested millions of dollars.

Investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston expects that IT can generate more in its first year than any start-up ever, which would make Kamen richer than Bill Gates within five years, according to details of the proposal reported by Inside.com.

Jobs reportedly predicts cities will be built around the machines. Bezos calls the product "revolutionary". Kamen claims it will transform social institutions and shake billion-dollar companies. None of those involved, including the publisher, the literary agent or the backers, would comment on the story.

Kamen, who lives in a house of his own design perched on a hill outside of Manchester, New Hampshire, invented the first portable insulin pump in the 1970s.

For 20 years, Kamen has been at work creating several innovative healthcare and technology products at DEKA Research and Development Corp. in Manchester. The secretive company has more than 150 employees, a spokeswoman said.

"We are proud of our record of introducing many breakthrough products and we continue to work on numerous products at any given time," Kamen said in a statement issued in response to the attention generated by the book offer.

Among his Kamen's recent inventions was a wheelchair capable of climbing stairs. He organizes a high school robotic invention competition that attracts more than 10,000 student participants each April to Walt Disney World's Epcot Center.

Kamen was named for a National Medal of Technology award by the White House in November for his invention of the insulin pump, joining the inventors of fiber optic cable, the computer pointing device and data storage equipment.

How do I get in?

I hope that this whole experience [a robot-design competition] has convinced you that technology is accessible, rewarding and fun, and that you'd better work at it *now*. There are only two alternatives: you'll be dumb or you'll grow up and be a lawyer.(multimillionaire inventor and engineer)

I am getting the feeling it is not an upgrade on something existing....the assmelby thing led me to believe it was some type of robot...

Also, venture capitalist excitement doesn't wake me up...these are the same bozos who missed the Internet the first time through, and then overcompensated by funding anything and everything that ended in .com.

IT is not a medical invention.

In a private meeting with Bezos, Jobs and Doerr, Kamen assembled two Gingers -- or ITs -- in 10 minutes, using a screwdriver and hex wrenches from components that fit into a couple of large duffel bags and some cardboard boxes.

The invention has a fun element to it, because once a Ginger was turned on, Bezos started laughing his ''loud, honking laugh.''

There are possibly two Ginger models, named Metro and Pro -- and the Metro may possibly cost less than $2,000.

Bezos is quoted as saying that IT ''is a product so revolutionary, you'll have no problem selling it. The question is, are people going to be allowed to use it?''

Jobs is quoted as saying: ''If enough people see the machine you won't have to convince them to architect cities around it. It'll just happen.''

Kemper says the invention will ''sweep over the world and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking.''

The ''core technology and its implementations'' will, according to Kamen, ''have a big, broad impact not only on social institutions but some billion-dollar old-line companies.'' And the invention will ''profoundly affect our environment and the way people live worldwide. It will be an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities.''

IT will be a mass-market consumer product ''likely to run afoul of existing regulations and or inspire new ones,'' according to Kemper. The invention will also likely require ''meeting with city planners, regulators, legislators, large commercial companies and university presidents about how cities, companies and campuses can be retro-fitted for Ginger.''

2ez2brich

This sounds an awful lot like that new personal jump jet thing - the backpack device you strap on and you have control over two jet/propellers on either side of you (just above your shoulders). that would get regulated out the ass.

as for stocks, so much is tanking right now, go with sure things - look at the stock chart for Budwiser and compare it to tech stocks - it was completely uneffected by the crash.
liquor is always a good bet - when times are good, people drink, when times are bad, people drink.
Seagrams is a bad bet b/c they have too much tied up into music and entertainment and that is all about to get tossed on its head until they can stablize the delivery system and agree on how to make money off of digital content delivery.
Bud, Coors - and to some extent the company that owns Guiness (but it also has Pillsbury and I think Burger King - so that isn't so great).

Bud is king.

I'm aware of mutual funds where you can be "socially responsible" and it won't buy anything that is alcohol, weapons, tobacco, drugs, etc etc - so basically you get shitty growth.
are any of you aware of any funds that will only buy those stocks? I want the most socially offensive fund availble - but not casins - every single one of those that is public is either under investigation now, or goes under too regularly

ALL THEY DO know: IT, also code-named Ginger, is an invention developed by 49-year-old scientist Dean Kamen, and the subject of a planned book by journalist Steve Kemper. According to Kemper�s proposal, IT will change the world, and is so extraordinary that it has drawn the attention of technology visionaries Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs and the investment dollars of pre-eminent Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr, among others.
Kemper � who has been published in Smithsonian, National Geographic and Outside among others � has had exclusive access to Kamen and the engineers at his New Hampshire-based research and development company, DEKA, for the past year and a half. He tags the proposed book as Soul of the New Machine meets The New New

Thing and won over his agent and publisher with e-mails describing the project in carefully couched language. He also included an amusing narrative of a meeting between Bezos, Jobs, Doerr and Kamen.
In the proposal, Doerr calls Kamen � who was just awarded the National Medal of Technology, the country�s highest such award � a combination of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. Doerr also says, a touch ominously, that he had been sure that he wouldn�t see the development of anything in his lifetime as important as the World Wide Web � until he saw IT. According to the proposal, another investor, Credit Suisse First Boston, expects Kamen�s invention to make more money in its first year than any start-up in history, predicting Kamen will be worth more in five years than Bill Gates. Jobs told Kamen the invention would be as significant as the PC, the proposal says.
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And though there are no specifics in the proposal as to what the invention is, there are some tantalizing clues. Is IT an energy source? Some sort of environmentally friendly personal transport device? One editor who saw the proposal went as far as to speculate � jokingly (perhaps) � that IT was a type of personal hovering craft.
Consider the following items, culled from the proposal:
IT is not a medical invention.
In a private meeting with Bezos, Jobs and Doerr, Kamen assembled two Gingers � or ITs � in 10 minutes, using a screwdriver and hex wrenches from components that fit into a couple of large duffel bags and some cardboard boxes.
The invention has a fun element to it, because once a Ginger was turned on, Bezos started laughing his �loud, honking laugh�.
There are possibly two Ginger models, named Metro and Pro � and the Metro may possibly cost less than $2,000.
Bezos is quoted as saying that IT �...is a product so revolutionary, you�ll have no problem selling it. The question is, are people going to be allowed to use it?�
Jobs is quoted as saying: �...If enough people see the machine you won�t have to convince them to architect cities around it. It�ll just happen.�
Kemper says the invention will �sweep over the world and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking.�
The �core technology and its implementations� will, according to Kamen, �have a big, broad impact not only on social institutions but some billion-dollar old-line companies.� And the invention will �profoundly affect our environment and the way people live worldwide. It will be an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities.�
IT will be a mass-market consumer product �likely to run afoul of existing regulations and or inspire new ones,� according to Kemper. The invention will also likely require �meeting with city planners, regulators, legislators, large commercial companies and university presidents about how cities, companies and campuses can be retro-fitted for Ginger.�
The invention itself is as interesting as the inventor. Kamen � �a true eccentric, cantankerous and opinionated, a great character,� according to the proposal � dropped out of college in his 20s, then invented the first drug infusion pump; he later created the first portable insulin pump and dialysis machine.
Kamen, an avid aviator who commutes via a helicopter, is also the founder of FIRST � For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology � a nonprofit organization that encourages young people to pursue studies and careers in math and science. He�s a single man obsessed with his work and out of touch with popular culture. According to the proposal, Kamen was seated at a White House dinner next to two people he�d never heard of: Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty.




� Inside.com
� Inside Dope
� Deals & Corporate Moves
� Job Changes





Kamen�s most recent invention is the iBot, an off-road wheelchair that can climb stairs, cover sand and gravel and rise to balance on two wheels. A prototype iBot was showcased by wheelchair-bound journalist John Hockenberry at least year�s TED conference in Monterrey, Calif.; the demonstration was greeted by wild applause.
IT/Ginger won�t be revealed until 2002, the proposal says. No one has seen the project except Kamen, Kemper, the engineers and the investors � which include Doerr, a partner in the venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which helped launch Netscape, Amazon, Juniper Networks, Excite, and @Home, among others; and Michael Schmertzler, managing director of Credit Suisse First Boston. Others who have seen the invention and signed confidentiality agreements include minor investors Paul Allaire, CEO of Xerox; and Vern Loucks, recently retired CEO of Baxter. Bezos, Jobs and writer/venture capitalist Randy Komisar sit on the advisory board. Kamen retains 85 percent of his new company, according to the proposal.
What do you think IT is? Post your thoughts to our BBS

Why the secrecy? Kamen fears, as he states in a letter to Kemper that is included in the proposal, that �huge corporations� might catch wind of the invention and �use their massive resources to erect obstacles against us or, worse, simply appropriate the technology by assigning hundreds of engineers to catch up to us, and thousands of employees to produce it in their plants.�
But such secrecy may have been enough to turn publishers away. �The Internet changed the world, too� said one editor who considered the project, �but books about it don�t really sell.� As for the quarter-million-dollar price tag for North American rights: on the one hand, it doesn�t seem to be a lot for a book about an invention which has mesmerized such well-known technology moguls. On the other, $250,000 is a lot to pay for a story about a product that hasn�t been seen, defined or named.
�We were well aware of Kamen,� says book editor Heimbouch, who says she�s been publishing in this technology circle for a long time.� (The bestselling The Monk and the Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur by Komisar is hers.) So jumping on board for the book wasn�t such a dilemma. Besides, says Heimbouch, Harvard Business School Press had intended to approach Kamen about doing a book anyway. �He�s an inventor of great technologies that make people�s lives better,� she says.
Harvard Business School Press, a division of Harvard Business School Publishing, is a wholly owned , not for profit subsidiary of Harvard University. The Sagalyn Agency retains all but North American rights to the book

Yes, invention is dead. It was replaced by innovation around the mid '40s. Turing had invented the computer, telephones were out, cars and assembly line technology...

Everything else is innovation. Hell we still use vaccines for crying out loud!

why would there be a quote that cities would naturally be redesigned to accomoodate this? It is something physical that moves (if it were huge, then you'd have to redesign stuff - but it fit in a duffel - unless it is a hot air ballon).

so it is something where you have to move around in a way we don't normally.
we currerntly move around via walking and cars and bikes - all are on the same plane.
I still maintain that this is something that breaks taht plane, something that allows flight.

again this is why they say that it will be highly regulated. imagine if everyone is flying around, this is chaotic and you need order - there are no laws regarding flying inside buildings and stuff because we've never needed those laws.

that is what I say - stand back, for I have spoken.

Jobs is quoted as saying: ''If enough people see the machine you won't have to convince them to architect cities around it. It'll just happen.''

Kemper says the invention will ''sweep over the world and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking.''

The ''core technology and its implementations'' will, according to Kamen, ''have a big, broad impact not only on social institutions but some billion-dollar old-line companies.'' And the invention will ''profoundly affect our environment and the way people live worldwide. It will be an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities.''

IT will be a mass-market consumer product ''likely to run afoul of existing regulations and or inspire new ones,'' according to Kemper. The invention will also likely require ''meeting with city planners, regulators, legislators, large commercial companies and university presidents about how cities, companies and campuses can be retro-fitted for Ginger.''

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joseph_stalin:

Bezos is quoted as saying that IT ''is a product so revolutionary, you'll have no problem selling it. The question is, are people going to be allowed to use it?''

---

Okay - agreed that could be either transportation or an "artificial intelligence machine."
Could you please explain an "artificial intelligence machine" to me and why you are so hell bent on that. I can back up the transpot theory and why I think it is air based, but I'm having trouble seeeing your side even though I'm looking.
a machine is a physical device, and then an AI one would be to replicate that through gears and such - WHY do that when it is currently being done with computers - it will always be faster that way than with a machine - plus Turing already did all this years, so why the hell would it be revolutionary? (I'm nto trying to attack, just want to see what I must be missing)

quote:

---

Jobs is quoted as saying: ''If enough people see the machine you won't have to convince them to architect cities around it. It'll just happen.''

---

Okay, so assume it is an AI device - that is a computer. We already have computers, why would a city be architected differently AROUND it - a new AI might help design them, but you would haven't to redesign around it. To have to do that implies either something so large as to have to work around it, or something that changes the way we would exist in the city. we currently exist in one motion plane in the city - that is the horizontal.
I maintain and will bet on it that this is something that breaks that plane - a transportation device that would allow vertical movement on an individual basis.

quote:

---

Kemper says the invention will ''sweep over the world and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking.''

---

AI might change ways of thinking - but really it would just allow something else to do the thinking for us. granted, I'm not sure how flying would change ways of thining other than it would be feasible to get places in a new manner. you would have to thinki differently because you have new access to the world around you. before you couldn't hover at the 20th floor and stare in people's windows. (and yes, that is the first thing I'd do)

quote:

---

The ''core technology and its implementations'' will, according to Kamen, ''have a big, broad impact not only on social institutions but some billion-dollar old-line companies.'' And the invention will ''profoundly affect our environment and the way people live worldwide. It will be an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities.''

---

the billion $$ companies would be the car companies. if you could fly over traffic jams, then city life will be changed.
AI - it is clean, but why would it affect city people more than someone in bumfuck alabama?

I'm just trying to get more discussion - but someone prove to me where me idea fails.

I maintain that it is a personal transportation device that allows vertical movement.

quote:

---

Originally posted by 2EZ2BRICH:
HappyScrappY is my new idol ! hehehe

2ez2brich :-)

---

Yeah! there we go - that's the way to get thinking!

As an interesting side note to all of this - before I started college way back in the day, I worked for a patent law firm and was in the US Patent office a lot.
I was assigned to do searches for replica guns, and new exercise equipment (hand in hand... yeah) and one thing I noticed was that every single infomercial I've seen for workout stuff was universally the same thing - it was expired ideas of equipment from the 1800's redone in plastic for today and then mass marketed via tv.

gotta love america.

I hope it is more exciting than that.

someone here a couple of posts up actually alluded to it sort of - a clean power source.
it is breifcase sized and can suuposedly power a house and clean drinking water with a laser.

how this is fun I'm not sure, but it would be revolutionary, and the billion dollar companies that it would challenge are the utilities... or at least power and water.

it won't change the largely developed countries immediately b/c we are already so built up, we have to tear down and rebuild or retrofit in order to use it, but 3rd world sort of places are held up by the lack of this sort of thing.

oh well, this isn't as sexy as I thought.

I'm also not sure this matches the quotes that were discussed, but this is what Wired talked about.

Bezos is quoted as saying that IT ''is a product so revolutionary, you'll have no problem selling it. The question is, are people going to be allowed to use it?''

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay - agreed that could be either transportation or an "artificial intelligence machine."
Could you please explain an "artificial intelligence machine" to me and why you are so hell bent on that. I can back up the transpot theory and why I think it is air based, but I'm having trouble seeeing your side even though I'm looking.
a machine is a physical device, and then an AI one would be to replicate that through gears and such - WHY do that when it is currently being done with computers - it will always be faster that way than with a machine - plus Turing already did all this years, so why the hell would it be revolutionary? (I'm nto trying to attack, just want to see what I must be missing)

if it is an AI machine, it could be used by drug dealers to expand their operations, or terrorists to figure out how to make cheaper, more attainable weaponry. hence the statement that people might not be allowed to use it.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jobs is quoted as saying: ''If enough people see the machine you won't have to convince them to architect cities around it. It'll just happen.''

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, so assume it is an AI device - that is a computer. We already have computers, why would a city be architected differently AROUND it - a new AI might help design them, but you would haven't to redesign around it. To have to do that implies either something so large as to have to work around it, or something that changes the way we would exist in the city. we currently exist in one motion plane in the city - that is the horizontal.
I maintain and will bet on it that this is something that breaks that plane - a transportation device that would allow vertical movement on an individual basis.

If it is an A.I. machine, it will be able to design cities more efficiently, hence the quote "cities will be built around it".

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kemper says the invention will ''sweep over the world and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking.''

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AI might change ways of thinking - but really it would just allow something else to do the thinking for us. granted, I'm not sure how flying would change ways of thining other than it would be feasible to get places in a new manner. you would have to thinki differently because you have new access to the world around you. before you couldn't hover at the 20th floor and stare in people's windows. (and yes, that is the first thing I'd do)

decisions are made on reason. reason is based on goals, information & capacities. a good AI machine would be able to determine how to accomplish goals much more efficiently than human reason. which would change the world.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ''core technology and its implementations'' will, according to Kamen, ''have a big, broad impact not only on social institutions but some billion-dollar old-line companies.'' And the invention will ''profoundly affect our environment and the way people live worldwide. It will be an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities.''

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the billion $$ companies would be the car companies. if you could fly over traffic jams, then city life will be changed.
AI - it is clean, but why would it affect city people more than someone in bumfuck alabama?

the social institutes & billion dollar companies would be companies & institutes that have their board of directors decision making process assited by machines that are much much smarter and capable of planning.
due to it's increased ability to plan, inefficient means of production, energy, etc. will be phased out by newer, cheaper, more efficient means.
i don't understand how this would apply to the "city" remark. like i said, this is a theory. It could be a reference to more efficient planning, as cities are overcrowded.

I'm just trying to get more discussion - but someone prove to me where me idea fails.

I maintain that it is a personal transportation device that allows vertical movement.

2) I just posted what it is. we are both wrong. it is a very efficient engine for power production and water purification.

------------------
THE NORWEGIAN FREIGHT TRAIN

"Pain, is just weakness leaving your body"

"...damn you for not giving my TEST" - Metallica

"After this show i'll be fat and happy again.....If i make it to the show...." - Lee Priest

"Lets put some weight on the bar.." - Shawn Ray

but yes, maybe it is an AI machine and our lives will be revolutionized by it all.

now back to our regular programming.

I don't think it's an AI device, not if it was so large that it took a few duffel bags and boxes to tote it in.

I can see it being a power souce or a transportation device or both. If he's somehow come up with a clean high yield energy source, things will definetly change big time. When you think about it there really are only two multi billion dollar old time industries, well there are a few i guess, but the Oil companies and the auto industry certainly have an incredible amount of control over our society. If he's come up with a way to disrupt their clench on us then i'll be one happy camper!

The only thing is that if it is a personal transportation device that allows you to hover or whatever, it either must be incredibly revolutionary, and i mean on the level of fundamentally changing physics, or it must have a power source able to generate enormous amounts of energy.

I think that it is a transportation device, or perhaps they're all just fucking with us! LOL!!!

Shit, i'm getting pissed, i hate not knowing things, all my searches have lead me no where. Fuck.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joseph_stalin:

if it is a flying device it could work by being anti-gravity instead of being a propellant.

---

Dude, I assume you are either doing this for fun to piss off people with more than 4 brain cells in their head, or you live on another planent entirely, or you are completely and totally retarded.

anti-gravity?

The device is called the Stirling engine; Kamen hopes it can be developed into an affordable, portable machine that will run a water purifier/power generator that could zap contaminated H20 with a UV laser to make it safe for drinking. "It can burn any fuel, and you can do all kinds of things with it," he says. "It might be very valuable in emerging economies, giving them access to electricity, even the Net."

Another project, to be unveiled in the next year, will necessitate building "the largest company in New Hampshire," Kamen says with characteristic bravura. He's shy about details, except to say it involves a consumer device unrelated to health care and will require $100 million in financing. Among the investors: Kleiner Perkins.

found at
http://www.wirednews.com/wired/archive/8.09/kamen_pr.html

quote:

---

Originally posted by E2:
OK 2ez just mail me and tell me what stock to buy!!!

---

Yes! I asked this a long time ago too. Is it STRX?? Info appreciated...

"But the digerati of Silicon Valley who know Kamen well were convinced they had the answer yesterday.
Ginger, they claimed, is a wearable car.
Speculation and even drawings of a purported patent application flew feverishly around the Web.
The drawing looks like a pogo stick with a single wheel under it that you can�t push over, no matter how hard you try. �Sort of �B.C.� meets George Jetson in the form of a Razor on steroids,� as Paul Saffo of the Institute for the Future put it yesterday.
If Ginger is indeed a kind of 60 mph wheeled witch�s broom, there would be a sort of outlandish logic to it, given the inventor�s background.
Dean Kamen..
Kamen, who according to Wired magazine holds a Guinness record for the longest interrupted span of time spent dressed in denim, has a history of socially motivated invention. A physicist and engineer, he holds more than 100 patents, several for quality-of-life devices, including the portable dialysis machine.
His latest invention was the Independence 3000 IBot Transporter � a sort of intelligent wheelchair. It includes onboard sensors, gyroscopes and computers that allow the device to place its wheels almost like feet so as to climb stairs and travel over curbs and rocks. He demonstrated it in July in the Senate and at Vice President Gore�s residence.


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Those smart miniaturized gyroscopes would presumably be at the heart of a Ginger machine that could whisk people magically through cities at high speed while never being a parking problem. (Maybe when you step off Ginger, it will fold itself up into something the size of a briefcase? Maybe you can then instruct the briefcase to follow you like a puppy?)
Sure, there will be bugs in the system. Literally. In your teeth and in your hair, if you are scooting along at high speed. But that could be solved by a sophisticated designer encasing you and your Ginger in an Armani egglike shell.
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nope.

I would think that would shake the shit out of the electric power generation buis.

The only real down fall is the re-wiring headache. Big friggin headache there.

I'm thinking transportation device that adds the vertical plane to the equation. Due to the way the presentation is written to have played out. Plu you would need to wire into something to have a power supply expo of some kind. No mention thereof in the presentation note.

where would a new form of transportation have its biggest impact? How about downtown NY or Atlanta or Miami.....anyone who has drivewn there knows what I mean.....

Cars work just fine in south Georgia or western Louisiana...because there aren't that many people there.

I'm not too sure about adding the vertical plane to the equation though.....that seems like it would certainly not be possible at under $2000 per unit.

i doubt it is a 60 mph unicycle though. how the fuck will that revolutionize the world. its just a smaller motorcycle. its like comparing records to cd's. they are the same thing, but one is a little smaller. no real difference. it has to be something else.

I seriously doubt it's a jacked up scooter. At least i hope it isn't. Why would these moguls invest so much in a little scooter??? makes no sense to me, there has to be something completely revolutionary about it.

January 12, 2001
Web posted at: 2:29 PM EST (1929 GMT)

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- The mystery invention code-named "Ginger" that has set the U.S. technology world abuzz may be little more than a motorized mini-scooter, judging from a recent patent application that came to light on Friday.

A December 14, 2000, filing with the World Intellectual Property Organization available on the Internet describes a "class of transportation vehicles for carrying an individual over ground ... that is unstable with respect to tipping when ... not powered."

This "personal mobility vehicle" pictures what appears to be a young girl balanced on a two-wheeled scooter. The patent application by millionaire inventor Dean Kamen and six co-inventors fits descriptions made in broadcast reports by people claiming to have seen prototypes of the vehicle.

Harvard Business School Press is said to have paid $250,000 for a book detailing "IT" that is set to be unveiled in 2002 by Kamen, creator of devices such as a portable insulin pump and a wheelchair that climbs stairs. The invention is said to take just 10 minutes to assemble using simple tools, according to details from the book proposal published by media industry watchers Inside.com.

Ginger could cost less than $2,000 a piece. Top computer industry leaders and investment bankers were named as backers, Inside.com said.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Kamen, 49, declined to reveal much on the device other than saying: "While our projects are in the development phase and have client confidentiality requirements, it is impossible for us to comment further."

Kamen and his company, Manchester, New Hampshire-based DEKA Research, did not return calls on Friday seeking comment on the patent application.

if it is a flying device it could work by being anti-gravity instead of being a propellant.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dude, I assume you are either doing this for fun to piss off people with more than 4 brain cells in their head, or you live on another planent entirely, or you are completely and totally retarded.

anti-gravity?

a link to an anti gravity web page is
http://www-hfml.sci.kun.nl/hfml/levitate.html

lame

There was a huge special on the discover channel about this - it isn't antigravity, it is just force applied against it. the amount of equipment and power they need just to levitate a frog costs several hundred thousand dollars to run and it fills a large lab room. it uses huge electromagnets.

There is no such thing as anti-gravity. you can apply force against it, but you can't just negate it.
there is antimatter - but not proof of this, that is in theoretical physics... no anti-gravity though.
because this doesn't exist, that is why I "flamed" you - which wasn't a flame, just frustrated with your response.

quote:

---

Originally posted by MrMuscle:
a mechanical blow up doll..AT LAST!!!

---

ever heard of RealDolls?

quote:

---

Originally posted by slickdadd:
Those are amazin aint they barbarian?

---

couldn't believe my eyes when i went through their website. a sort of latex necrophilia...could be fun

- a book to describe IT - Utter bullshit

- the secret will be revealed in 2002 - Total bullshit

I think it�s a solar cell powered cooking pan for the 3rd world countries