The Segway is 8 years old

Image via Wikipedia

Can you recall the hype surrounding the release of the Segway scooter? It was quite a secret for a time. Dean Kamen, the mysterious device’s inventor used codewords, refused to disclose what it was he was working on, lured visionary investors, and people everywhere were convinced that whatever the contraption was it was set to forever transform the world.

When it was unveiled on December 3, 2001, you could almost hear the collective head scratching. Here’s Wired’s description:

And then the cover came off, and the Segway was revealed to be … a scooter.

Not only that, the scooter cost 5,000 clams. Since 2001, Segway has sold “tens of thousands” of the gyroscope-based people movers. No, that’s not bad, but consider another device introduced to the public a little more than a month and a half earlier: the iPod. Since their debut, Apple has sold roughly 300 million of the music players.

And here’s the thing, even though I’ve often admired Segways when on vacation and watching the inevitable tour groups leaning their way along city sidewalks past piazzas and canals, I’ve never actually gotten on top of one of the things. It’s not that I don’t want to, rather I’ve just never felt the need, and that makes the concept of the Segway seem a whole lot less revolutionary than first advertised.

Just for fun, here’s some good old fashioned Segway crash footage. That never goes out of style, no matter what the technology. Happy Birthday, Segway!