Segway inventor on future technology – and why videogames aren't it | Hacker News Reader

Segway inventor on future technology – and why videogames aren't it

guardian.co.uk

61 pointsemontero124 comments

Dean Kamen has a track record that is typical of any serial inventor, some hits, lots of misses. He sometimes is way ahead of the curve and manages to get it right, most of the times it goes nowhere.

Still, he's better off than most of us and he's living proof that inventors don't need to die penniless.

Whatever he's saying, there is always some little gem in there that you probably hadn't thought of. The world is a -much- better place with him in it, an interesting and productive person and with a reasonably nice personality.

Truely an original and inspiring figure for anybody that likes to invent things or that dreams of improving the world.

Here is a picture of his house by the way, I've never seen anything quite like it:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/55/119467546_72bf35b18c.jpg?v...

That looks sustainable. I applaud what he's done but also wonder how "owns two jets, two helicopters and a private island" fits with deep concerns about sustainability. Mind you, I'm sure on the balance he's still ahead when it comes to giving back more than he's taken.

That's a good point. I think that very few people actually practice what they preach.

The way in which society rewards successful people is to give them lots of money, I suspect that the real equation is not just whether you've given back during your life more than what you have taken but how much you will have influenced the world for the worse or the better in the long term.

In that sense it is a lot harder to figure out how much a single individual can change things.

Two jets, two helicopters and an island sound a bit over the top, but I think I'd have to know more about the uses they're being put to before I'd make a call on that.

I made a lot of DK jokes after the Segway came out - I thought it was a solution in search of a problem, and its high price made it an expensive toy more than anything else. But I was impressed with his water purification machine last year, and I share his frustration* with much of our technological effort and spend going towards frivolous things.

* while recognizing that some of this stems from not being able to make even more money :)

Article ended just when it was starting to get interesting though.

His water purification system is really amazing. You would think that all of the 'help save the worlds poor' non-profits would be jumping all over it. Here's the Wired article from last year on it - http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/03/colbert-and-kam/

Here's why: http://www.appropedia.org/Slingshot_water_purifier

It costs WAY WAY too much. He "hopes" to get it below $2000, which means right now it's more than that. And after you read the $/L estimate, add in the cost of fuel and you'll see the device is not cost effective (when compared to other devices that do the same thing).

According to here: http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/powered-by-cow-dung-slingshot... the system cost is $5200.

It would come down in cost with economies of scale, and improved production techniques, and... in 20 years, it would be out of patent.

I think there is a moral dilemma when someone creates something immensely valuable, but wants to be paid for it. But... wouldn't a world in which people didn't get paid quickly become rotten? And is it any different from people needing money for life-saving surgery (because the surgeons, hospitals and suppliers all want to be paid). See also the pied piper.

Factual content: there's a camping device for purifying water with ultraviolet light http://www.steripen.com/ but it just kills things, and won't remove salt or arsenic.

how is it superior to simple bleach based purification? http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/better-than-bleach-us...

See, that looks cheap to me. DK claims 1000 liters/day for a cost of 0.2 cents/liter; let's be pessimistic and assume 500. (Maintenance would be my biggest worry, but let's keep it simple.)

Now if we take grinding poverty as a per capita income of $1/day and consider a village of 100 people, that means everyone in the village could have 5 liters of pure water a day at a cost of 1 day per week - a 14% 'tax' for 1 year.

That's a big economic hit for a very poor village, but it would not surprise me to find that such a village might lose more than 14% of its productivity to a combination of acquiring cleanish water and lost productivity due to water-borne diseases.

$5200 is not big bucks to us in the developed world. Surely it would not cost too much to buy 5 of them and do a year long comparison of 10 villages where half of them have the system and the other half serve as a control. Even if you add in setup costs the total bill for such an experiment would only be $75k.

To be fair, the segway wasn't the initial problem they were trying to solve. It was a byproduct of something larger. His team was working on a wheel chair called the iBot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBOT) while making the wheel base they realized it was fun on its own and expanded that idea to the segway. The iBot is actually trying to solve a real problem.

I think Kamen is wrong for dismissing a video game (or any kind of software project) as frivolity. I'm not sure that giving a water purifier to a starving village is necessarily "better" than a video game that provides millions of people with a few hours of entertainment every day. I tend to be wary of people who rush to grab the moral high ground.

I think it's noble that he choose to dedicate his genius to helping people, but there's no need to belittle the work of others.

Video games are entertainment, but not the only kind and so not themselves essential. Water is the only water.

There is an actual value scale here for people, and belittling or denying it shouldn't be part of choosing to be a game maker.

When people have their basic needs met, they will almost certainly start doing things like playing video games.

Is it me or is he basically saying: no one wants to spend the money to buy my products?

He talks about global changes and stuff, but he prices his things too high. I really wanted, and could have used, a segway - but I took one look at the price and just laughed.

I don't know how much the slingshot costs, but I bet he wants tons of money for it.

He is great at making stuff. He's great at selling (as in convincing) people. He's terrible at selling (as in moving product).

He needs someone to act as a reality check, AKA market research person.

The segway was a 'miss' pricewise and there are lots of other things wrong with it, but it is hardly the only thing Dean Kamen invented, chances are you know someone that uses his main invention (the 0 contact dialysis pump) regularly.

The segway would have certainly sold more if the price had been lower, I thought that given the parts in it it should not have cost more than an electric bicycle but I think it is fine for him to charge for it whatever he wants.

The market proved to him that it was too expensive, and that puts it right up there with the Sinclair C5 (another one of those characters).

I'm sure that lessons were learned.

Phenomenal pre-launch buzz around the segway by the way.

"The day we made the first Segway, the very first one, we drew pictures of enclosed ones. Going back and tweaking things to make them 5% better or 3% cheaper? There are whole industries who know how to do that very well. Our position is been there, done that, did it, changed the world, move on."

He does not seem to understand that cost is the number one factor for all inventions. An immortality pill that costs 2trillion is not going to sell to anyone.

The slingshot is about 1,000 british pounds. For all its technology, that is really high. I work with engineers without borders and my team has gone the opposite route. Some water purification for all is better than perfect water purification for few. Our water purifier is basically a giant Brita filter. A concrete form for a tank, about a meter of sand, a plastic top, some piping, and you can have decent water purification for under $200 per village. The slingshot is technically superior but economically unfeasible.

"More than ever, the world needs good engineers. However, the pool of talent is shrinking not growing."

That's not all. According to Kamen: "Today's children are the first generation in which it is highly probable that their average quality of life, and education level, will be less than it was for their parents."

Are both of these statements really true worldwide? (I can see how they might be true in the United States, although I think the latter is too pessimistic even then)

Average quality of life could do with some definition.

It's a pretty broad statement. If it means getting a solid education I'm with Kamen, if it means having access to information then I don't. If it means getting food on the table then the jury is still out. It's hard to make such statements without further qualification.

In order to put them in volume production, you need a well-defined market and a distribution strategy

Dean's frustrations with the realpolitik of the world are somewhat surprising.

A man of his intellect should have understood a long time ago that broken states are not going to be fixed by technology. But I suppose he's also a great idealist and that would color his view of the world.

The bottom line is no matter how great your technology for clean water or dung powered engines is, it can't fix a broken state run by thugs and criminals.

Truly fixing the world is much harder then building sterling engines. But it is possible. The proper reaction is not to get frustrated but to change strategies.

Dean is smart and while he may not be as experienced with 3rd world politics as he is with technology, his wealth and intellect could make a GREAT difference IF he truly looked at realpolitiks as an engineering challenge, rather then get frustrated and discouraged by it.

Technologists can have all kinds of disconnects from how things really work, when you're good at fixing and inventing machinery the temptation is to view everything as a machine and to 'fix' it in some way.

The worlds problems are not going to be solved by a single individual, no matter how gifted, but you can't fault a guy for trying.

I respect Dean Kamen's intelligence and creativity, but it appears to me he is trying to solve problems that may not exist. His frustration stems for this idea that he needs to create a "sustainable" world. What if he is wrong? What if the world is "sustainable" without his inventions? I agree with his premise that there is too little long term planning, but long term vision is more educated guessing than science. Look back in history and see how wrong many of the predictions have been, especially ones of doom and gloom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb While things are far from perfect and could be improved, the sky isn't likely to fall.

"In order to put them in volume production, you need a well-defined market and a distribution strategy. The problem is that most of our commercial partners - even the giants - do not do a lot of business in the underdeveloped parts of the world. This is not a shortage of technology. It's a shortage of courage, vision, awareness: a lot of human things."

Social and business processes are a technology in need of inventing too. The creativity behind Grameen Bank, Kiva, DonorsChoose, etc is just as important as the tech behind his Slingshot and motor.

I love Kamen but right now he sounds like a whiny engineer wondering why the world isn't beating a path to his door. The job isn't over once the technology exists.

With his track record, I would hardly be willing to take his advice about the future.

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