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How would you change the Segway?


Believe it or not, it's been almost six years since Dean Kamen's highly-anticipated, mysterious "IT" project was revealed to be the Segway personal transporter, yet far from fundamentally revolutionizing the way we get from here to there as the pre-release hype would have had us believe, you'd be hard-pressed to spot one of these pricey gadgets anywhere outside of a few golf courses or in a certain Apple founder's garage. It's not that the idea of a personal battery-powered vehicle isn't sound, you say, it's just that the thing costs too damn much (over five grand last time we checked) -- but we can't believe that's the sole impediment to adoption. Would a significant price drop really be the only thing it took to turn a nation of car-addicted commuters into one of happy, self-stabilizing Segway riders? Or are there other core issues -- size, speed, and safety, perhaps -- that need to be addressed before the appeal of powered personal transportation reaches critical mass? As always, we love to hear your constructive suggestions and criticisms here, so please have at it...