Segway, the company started by noted inventor Dean Kamen with the modest goal of changing the way the world moves on two feet, recently introduced two new models of its "personal transporter." If you missed it, you're forgiven. It was an announcement met with an impressive silence.
SEPTEMBER 11, 2006
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Reinventing The Wheel, Slowly
Segway hasn't transformed city life, but its technology may yet become pervasive
Segway, the company started by noted inventor Dean Kamen with the modest goal of changing the way the world moves on two feet, recently introduced two new models of its "personal transporter." If you missed it, you're forgiven. It was an announcement met with an impressive silence.
The first Segway -- a clean-running, technologically dumbfounding, fun-as-hell-to-ride device that was pretty much impossible to fall off of -- was introduced to so much fanfare five years ago that the public-relations agency that helped engineer it still uses it as a case study in how to create a media frenzy. It may be an even better case study in media backlash. The initial euphoria had hardly worn off before a new consensus emerged: This was all much ado about a $5,000 scooter. Journalists liked riding it, but they couldn't figure out who would buy it. John Doerr, the Silicon Valley eminence who backed it, had said entire cities would be redesigned around it. Instead, The Washington Post (WPO ) soon was calling it "The Invention That Runs on Hype."
Kamen says every invention is a response to a problem. But the problem he wanted to solve -- the need for a clean, energy efficient vehicle that could coexist with pedestrians and replace the car in the world's cities -- was one that others didn't see.
FUTURE AGNOSTIC
In predicting the future of technology, the hardest part might not be envisioning what can be invented, but determining what will be needed. There's an awful lot of amazing technology in the personal transporter, which is powered by computer-controlled electric motors that automatically keep the machine in balance in response to bumps in the road and the rider's movements. Still, when it comes to clean, inexpensive, one-person transportation, for many people a bike does just fine. Disabled users swear by the Segway, and police departments have adopted it, but that doesn't make the personal transporter the game changer Kamen imagined. Thousands have sold, but not nearly as many as Segway hoped for.
Writing off Segway, however, would be a big mistake. After all the hype and counterhype, there's still time for a very different second act. Kamen's vision of Segway was focused on the two-wheeled personal transporter. But James D. Norrod, the chief executive recruited a year and a half ago by Doerr, is pushing the company toward a much more expansive view of what Segway is about.
"I look at the technology," says Norrod, "and ask, 'Where else can it be used?"' Norrod's approach is what you can think of as "future agnostic." In his view, Segway needn't define a whole new urban ecology or replace the car. It can put its technology into anything that moves. That means unmanned vehicles with potential military or industrial uses, or multiperson vehicles that use Segway's computers and electric engines to glide smoothly over obstacles. And Norrod thinks Segway's efficient electric motors could be central to a new generation of hybrid cars (yes, cars). Segway has already built a four-wheeled, multiperson prototype. "If people want four wheels," says Norrod, "I should give 'em four wheels."
It's not the vision Kamen originally had. Still the chairman of Segway, he had hoped to offer the grand solution to the problems of urban traffic and pollution. Instead, his technology offers the solution to a myriad of less all encompassing but still very important problems. "Life," Kamen says, "is too short for incrementalism." It's a big statement, and, put simply, untrue. Incrementalism might not inspire an initial burst of invention (Kamen is definitely the expert on that), but it's a pretty good description of how inventions actually make it into the real world when the publicity is gone.
Segway 是著名发明家迪恩·卡门创建的一家公司，它的目标并不远大，就是要改变这个世界靠双脚前行的方式。最近 Segway 公司推出了两款新型的“个人交通工具”。如果你对此一无所知，也是情有可原。因为这个消息宣布时，社会各界的反应出奇的平静。
5 年前，第一款 Segway 踏板车问世，它不会污染环境，使用的技术令人啧啧称奇，乘坐它更是乐趣无穷，而且几乎不会摔下来。它一经推出便引起轰动，以致于帮公司策划了这次宣传活动 的公关公司到现在仍把它当作如何创造媒体宣传风暴的教学案例。但是它也许更适合做研究媒体宣传反作用的案例。当最初的兴奋劲还未消退，人们很快又达成了新 的共识：这个售价高达 5000 美元的踏板车实在不值得人们如此兴奋。记者们喜欢乘这种车，但是却想不出有谁会买它。硅谷名人约翰·多尔则力挺此车，他曾断言所有城市都将围绕 Segway 踏板车重新展开设计。相反，《华盛顿邮报》没过多久就称之为“夸大其辞的发明”。
卡门说，每项发明都是要解决某个问题。但是他想要解决的别人却不认为是问题。卡门认为有必要发明一种清洁的、能源利用效率高的交通工具，它可以在世界各大城市的人行道上行驶，同时又能取代汽车。
未来不可知论
在 预测技术未来时，最难的可能并不是憧憬将来的发明是什么，而是判断未来将会需要什么。这款个人交通工具拥有许多惊人的技术，它由计算机控制的电子发动机提 供动力，在遇到道路上的沟沟坎坎时，这种发动机能够让交通工具自动保持平衡。然而，当谈到无污染、价格便宜而且可以单人驾驶的交通工具时，许多人认为自行 车就非常好。残疾人用户则对 Segway 踏板车信赖有加，警察局也已采用了这一工具，但这并未使这种个人交通工具成为卡门想象中能改变生活方式的利器。尽管已经售出了数千部 Segway 踏板车，但距离公司期望的目标还有很大差距。
然而，轻视 Segway 将会是个巨大的错误。在被大肆吹捧又遭到反对贬抑之后， Segway 仍然有探寻其他应用可能的时间。卡门关于 Segway 的设想集中在两轮的个人交通工具上。但是多尔一年半前聘请来的首席执行官詹姆斯·诺德却带领 Segway 朝着更广阔的领域迈进。
“我看着这项技术，”诺德说，“不禁在问：‘它还能用在什么地方？'”诺德的方法会让你想到“未来不可知论”。在他看来， Segway 无需开创一种全新的城市生态环境或者去取代汽车。它可以把技术应用到一切运动的事物中去，即军事或工业用途的无人驾驶交通工具或者使用 Segway 的计算机和电子发动机、能够平稳翻越障碍物的多人驾驶工具。诺德还认为， Segway 的高效电子发动机可以成为新一代混合动力汽车的核心。 Segway 已经开发出了一款 4 轮多人交通工具的初始模型。“如果人们想要 4 个轮子，”诺德说，“我就应该给他们 4 个轮子。”
这并不是卡门最初的设想。仍然担任 Segway 公司董事长的卡门曾经希望为城市交通和污染问题提供解决方案。然而，他的技术却为许许多多不那么包罗万象但又非常重要的问题提供了解决方案。卡门说：“生 命对于渐进主义者来说实在太短暂。”这其实是一句大而空的话，渐进主义也许不会激发初始的发明创造，但它却准确地描述了当宣传效应逐渐消退后，发明创造是 如何真正融入现实世界的。
