From: hal@finney.org
Date: Wed Nov 28 2001 - 16:09:58 MST
You may remember early this year there was much buzz on the Internet about
a mysterious new invention by Dean Kamen, famous for his self-balancing
wheelchair. Code-named Ginger and sometimes also called IT, people like
Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos were saying that it would be bigger than the
internet and that cities would be redesigned around it.
Since then I have looked in occasionally at fan sites including
www.ginger-chat.com and www.theitquestion.com. The most popular guess
is that Ginger is a self-balancing scooter which you control by leaning.
There is also speculation that it may be powered by a Stirling engine,
which is a very low pollution heat engine.
The big news is that Diane Sawyer announced Monday on Good Morning America
that Ginger would be revealed a week later on the show, Monday December 3.
If you go to www.ginger-chat.com you can here a .wav file of her announcement.
Here is what she said:
Do you remember IT? A number of people as I go around the country have
said to me "what about IT, whatever happened to IT? You talked about
IT." Well, we told you earlier about this super-secret brainchild of
inventor Dean Kamen.
A mystery invention that, we have been told, not only did it create
buzz, everyone will have to have one, it will immediately make the
people who sell it richer than Bill Gates. It's that inventive,
that amazing.
Well, are you ready, 'cos one week from today, we're gonna reveal right
here what IT is. And we don't know either: we don't know if you eat
it, or ride it, or co-anchor with it, we don't know, do we? (laughs)
But we're gonna find out one week from today.
I know a lot of people are going to be disappointed if it is just a
scooter, and it is hard to see how such a device would justify the hype.
In fairness, Kamen has tried to rein in the publicity and no doubt is
frustrated that whatever he shows will fail to live up to expectations.
Hal
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