Slashdot Log In
Toyota Announces the Winglet, Wannabe Segway Killer
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Aug 03, 2008 02:21 AM
from the strange-marketing-moves dept.
from the strange-marketing-moves dept.
Various gadget/toy venues are writing about the Toyota Winglet, a diminutive Segway-like personal transporter. (Toyota took over Sony's robot division a year back.) It comes in three sizes and offers about a third the speed and a quarter the range of the Segway; on the upside, it charges in an hour vs. Segway's 10 hours. Wired writes: "The Winglet is the first gadget to duplicate the celebrated, and often mocked, navigation system of the Segway Transporter."
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Early abandoners. (Score:5, Funny)
Segway Killer
You can't kill what's already dead.
Or you could just oh I don't know (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Or you could just oh I don't know (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
...DiY servicing and maintenance, no license needed, cheap spares available everywhere...
Winglet? WingNUT is more like it.
Re:Or you could just oh I don't know (Score:5, Insightful)
You have a physically demanding job, yet cannot show up to work after breaking a sweat? Either your job isn't physically demanding, or you think that sweat is only worth sweating out if you're being paid for it.
And if you haven't got the energy left for a 10km ride on a bicycle at the end of the day, then how on earth do you have the energy to stand on a Segway for an hour?
I call your post BS, and I call your ass tubby.
Parent
Re:Or you could just oh I don't know (Score:4, Funny)
The only car that could get you a threesome are cars with only two seats.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That sir, is a feature, not a bug.
You're completely insane to even think about it. One is quite enough.
The sweaty effect of humid climates (Score:4, Insightful)
The amount of sweat you will emit is highly correlated with the amount of training.
Right there you show your ignorance. Try riding a bike ANYWHERE in a humid climate and tell me how dry you stay. Or just a plain hot climate -- try riding your bike 5 miles to work when it's 90F outside.
Report back when your education is complete.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to live in Florida too, and biking there was much more feasable. We had maybe a month or two where it was in the 80's in the morning, but the rest of the year it was beautiful. All the streets there had bike lanes too! Then I moved to Oklahoma. Suddenly, unless you work at a stables or a distillery or something, there's also the issue of body odor.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree most people should walk, but where you're seeing Segways being used, I think, there's a benefit. There's nothing wrong with making the job of some security guy easier. I've seen these at the Atlanta airport, where the train system is like a mile long, and several classes of employees need to go all the way from the main terminal to the end and back, and they don't need to wait for the train system (which can be quite crowded at times anyway).
Sure, the fat asses of the world ought to walk to Starb
Undead, perhaps? (Score:3, Insightful)
This seems much more like a resurrection of the concept behind the Segway rather than a Segway killer. I actually want this to take off.
Re:Undead, perhaps? (Score:5, Funny)
I actually want this to take off.
So do I, but unfortunately it doesn't have a jet pack, it's just low speed scooter.
Parent
Range (Score:2)
Re:Range (Score:5, Insightful)
It has a range of 5km. But it's so small I can probably use it to drive from my car to grocery store on opposite side of parking lot.
This could be the answer to that ubiquitous American dilemma: How can I get from one end of Walmart's parking lot to the other without getting any actual excercise?
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Thats not the question. The real question is, "how can I sit on the couch and get somebody to come stuff my pie hole with processed chemical laden food so that I don't miss anything on the boob toob".
The Tivo was only a partial answer. I don't know if anybody saw Wall-E yet so spoiler ahead, but there are people in the future that are fat, live on hyper sleds, and do nothing but watch advertisement-laden tv while stuffing their pie holes with food. I was laughing really hard and the kids did not get it.
Y
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
laughing takes energy
I dunno (Score:5, Funny)
Toyota's got a lot of catching up to do - the Segway has already taken the world by storm.
Re:I dunno (Score:4, Funny)
Toyota's got a lot of catching up to do - the Segway has already taken the world by storm.
I can hardly remember life before the Segway [theonion.com].
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I dunno (Score:4, Funny)
That was a joke, but we shall see who'll be laughing once the Chinese segway cavalry [justcrusade.org] rolls over your defensive lines.
Parent
Both McCain and Obama, (Score:4, Funny)
Small wheels (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, I don't have to take a very big bump in the road to fall with these.
Severely disappointed (Score:5, Funny)
I was severely disappointed with the Segway. I hear about the "revolution in personal transportation" PR they had going, and I expected one of three things:
* jetpacks
* hovercars / flying cars
* teleporters
And instead, I get a golfcart cut in half with a gyroscope and scooter handlebars added. What a fucking disappointment.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
PR they had going, and I expected one of three things: * jetpacks * hovercars / flying cars * teleporters
The Jetsons have f*cked everyone's expectations. See, if you watched Flintstones, you weren't disappointed when the bottom rusted out of your car, exposing your feet to raw road.
Segway Killer? (Score:3, Informative)
Segway killer? (Score:2)
The Segway is hardly alive. Maybe more like "Segway-putter-out-of-misery".
There is something to kill? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am going to go out on a limb and state that the Segway has almost no real legitimate use.
A bike is way more agile, and is able to cover a much wider assortment of areas.
A bike is able to travel just as fast with little effort, and can travel faster if you want to put that much power into it.
A bike doesn't need batteries.
There are health benefits from this thing called "exercise."
Now if you are talking about a battery powered vehicle that can travel on a road and get you back and forth to work, sign me up. Otherwise its simply a toy.
Re:There is something to kill? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have seen one perfectly valid use of the segway, and having travelled the same area for the same length of time, agree it would be worthwhile: Large Conventions. Seriously. If you have a convention you're going to be at for 12+ hours out of a day, spanning anywhere from a quarter to 2 miles (think fairgrounds perhaps here) then being able to hang a ride on a device like that could be a godsend for your legs (when I was doing it on foot I barely had enough energy left to either walk the half mile back to my hotel, or worse yet the half mile to my car followed by a commute out of town to my hotel.) For things like that it makes perfect sense. And according to the guy I talked to who had one, it used basically no power while idle, so if you plan out your route through the convention center well, you can spend all day there and only use perhaps 3/4 of your charge. Furthermore there ARE people with knee and hip injuries who it would help feel less bad about their condition that running around on canes/crutches/wheelchairs. Look I'm hip I've got a segway. It's not that I can't walk, I'm just too cool to do it! :)
Just my 2 cents.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There is something to kill? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously. If you have a convention you're going to be at for 12+ hours out of a day, spanning anywhere from a quarter to 2 miles (think fairgrounds perhaps here) then being able to hang a ride on a device like that could be a godsend for your legs (when I was doing it on foot I barely had enough energy left to either walk the half mile back to my hotel, or worse yet the half mile to my car followed by a commute out of town to my hotel.)
No offense, but if you have trouble walking 2 miles in a couple of hours, you should probably use every opportunity to get some exercise.
Your point about Segways being a kind of hipper wheelchair makes sense, though.
Parent
Re:There is something to kill? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think you've ever been to any sort of themed fan convention. Walk 2 miles and stand up for approximately 12 hours, with a 5 minute break every hour. I'd love to see how you fare.
No matter how strong you are or how much endurance you have, standing/walking around at a con for that long is going to take a toll on you.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Paris has tours on segways. Also, I have seen them available in a couple of Spanish cities.
They are hardly dead. It seems like they are in use for more things every day.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Paris has tours on segways. Also, I have seen them available in a couple of Spanish cities.
They are hardly dead. It seems like they are in use for more things every day.
Born in America, despised in America, loved in Europe. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Segway: the David Hasselhoff of personal people movers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I had the chance to try out a Segway a few years ago, and the salesman told me they were pitching it at three main market segments:
1. The elderly. As has already been mentioned in this discussion, a Segway can be used as a "hipper wheelchair". For elderly folk with limited mobility (i.e. they no longer have the energy required to pedal their bikes through possibly hilly areas) a Segway provides a faster, more elegant, and, yes, cooler alternative to an electronic wheelchair.
2. Large factories / industrial c
Helpful to use at big stores / warehouses (Score:2, Funny)
These would be cool at big stores. I hate walking around all the fat sweaty people at walmart to get to the automotive section or something. If I had one of these, I could probably use speed and agility to avoid their odor and plump bodies, or just run them down by attaching spikes to the front.
Useless (Score:3, Funny)
IOW, it's twelve times as useless!
Who needs wheels? (Score:2)
segways (Score:2)
It doesnt exactly take much to kill something that was barely alive anyways (mostly just have to pull out the plug from the resperator). There's also geeks out there who have put together their own segways [tlb.org] for far less than what the actual company wants. IMHO, if I didnt think it looked so douchey to ride one, I'd think it would be pretty awesome to build something like that at home for fun.
From wiki [wikipedia.org]:
Perfect Market (Score:3, Interesting)
With its aging population and far more emphasis on walking than driving, Japan is the perfect market for this device.
The lower speed makes it less likely to be a nuisance/danger on the ubiquitous and heavily trafficked sidewalks and walking paths.
Also, even the largest model will fit comfortably on most trains and subway lines, making it useful for shopping/errand runs that include a segment on a mass transit system.
Those two features alone give it a fighting chance.
If my suspicions are correct.... (Score:2)
AIBO (Score:2)
Would be way cooler (and probably safer for the old folks) to make some new bigger aibo to sit on and cruise around.. maybe chase cats too. ;)
Get rid of the vertical column (Score:3, Interesting)
These vertical hold-on-to column on these things should be got rid of. Then the rider can ride like a skateboard.
It reminds me of that scene in Back to the Future X where Michael J. Fox rips the handlebars off the 50's scooter turning it into a rad 80s skateboard. Same needs to be done here.
The bar is set a bit low (Score:2)
Needed Feature (Score:2)
Is this one Bush proof [about.com]?
Segway killer? (Score:5, Funny)
I thought the Segway was the Segway killer...
Thank god! (Score:4, Informative)
A lot of us have been disappointed in the Segway. However, having my PhD in robotics, I've been downright frustrated.
While I would agree that Dean Kamen is "inventive" and very good at marketing, his products are not at all ground breaking in terms of technology. To add insult to injury his products are way over priced.
Robotics has been able to do his Segway balance trick for many decades. "Gee, sense where center of mass has moved and move the support position under it." In fact, we've been able to do a two link version of this problem as well (Think one Segway on top of another except the top segway has no power.)
However, Kamen burns through $150M duplicating the already known and is heralded as the most visionary man on the planet. Puuhleeeease.
His iBot wheelchair is the better of his products (It, by the way only requires the same basic robotics principle as the Segway.) It is slightly more "visionary" on its application and appreciably more sophisticated in its control loops to provide stair climbing abilities. But again... the cost of this beast is $26K. Placing it quite out of reach of most people who need it.
I'm sure somebody who is a better manager at actually manufacturing a product at reasonable costs could knock these off at half the price or less and provide a greater good to the world than Kamen does by having his face plastered all over magazines. But, sadly, they can't can't because of Kamen's patents.
I hope Toyota teaches him a lesson about how to really manufacture and sell a product. But, personally, I think the the entire Segway concept is flawed. A "trick" that is cute to behold but the luster wears off fast enough that people come to their senses before actually buying something they don't really need.
Handicapped users... (Score:3, Insightful)
As a handicapped "mobility impaired" person I would very much like to have something similar to this: small, light, easy to use, and, I assume, reliable.
While I'm no longer in the wheelchair I spent three years in, I am limited in how far I can walk, even with assistance - after about 200 feet I've hit my limit. :o(
Something like this unit just might extend my range enough to be able to get around in a mall, or even a larger store while standing.
That would be much better than a wheelchair in a number of ways... Since it puts weight on the legs, it helps to maintain skeletal strength, being lighter than the typical powered wheelchair or motorized scooter mobility aid (which can weigh up to 600 pounds including occupant) it could be safer for others as well as easier to transport, and instead of rolling about with my face at crotch level, I'd be eye-to-eye with other humans.
If the cost ends up reasonable, I'll be looking into one once it makes it's debut.
--Tomas
Re:baby winglet? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:baby winglet? (Score:4, Informative)
You don't use your hands on the small one or the middle sized one. You lock the small upright handle between your legs, leaving your hands free. Sheesh. Even the still photos show that.
Parent