'Ginger' gets picked up by the Washington Post.
<<But whatever the case, Dean Kamen comes out of a classic American mold, Internet pioneer Stewart Brand observed yesterday.
"Dean is a genuine Gyro Gearloose -- one of the best we have in this generation," he said. "He's in the tradition of Carl Djerassi and the birth control pill, Thomas Edison and the light bulb, Benjamin Franklin and the Franklin stove. And they really did change everything.">>
Ginger: The Wheel Thing?
Gadget Is Rumored to Be A High-Tech Unicycle
Secretive inventor Dean Kamen. A sketch accompanying a World Intellectual Property Organization
application for a personal mobility vehicle patent might (or might not) be the elusive Ginger. (AP)
_____Related Content_____
• Harvard Press's Expensive Secret (The Washington Post, Jan. 11, 2001)
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By Joel Garreau
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 12, 2001; Page C01
What could it be?
Respected inventor Dean Kamen of Manchester, N.H., we are told, has come up with a world-moving
invention that will be "an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous, and often
frustrating, especially for people in the cities."
Has the man reinvented sex?
Harvard Business School Press is paying a quarter of a million dollars for a book on the subject.
According to the book proposal, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos says it's a "product so revolutionary,
you'll have no problem selling it." Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs says it will change the ways cities are
designed. Venture capitalist John Doerr has invested millions in it.
The code name for this product is "Ginger." What could it be?
If anybody actually knows, they're not talking.
But the digerati of Silicon Valley who know Kamen well were convinced they had the answer yesterday.
Ginger, they claimed, is a wearable car.
Speculation and even drawings of a purported patent application flew feverishly around the Web.
The drawing looks like a pogo stick with a single wheel under it that you can't push over, no matter how
hard you try. "Sort of 'B.C.' meets George Jetson in the form of a Razor on steroids," as Paul Saffo of the
Institute for the Future put it yesterday.
If Ginger is indeed a kind of 60 mph wheeled witch's broom, there would be a sort of outlandish logic to
it, given the inventor's background.
Kamen, who according to Wired magazine holds a Guinness record for the longest interrupted span of
time spent dressed in denim, has a history of socially motivated invention. A physicist and engineer, he
holds more than 100 patents, several for quality-of-life devices, including the portable dialysis machine.
His latest invention was the Independence 3000 IBot Transporter -- a sort of intelligent wheelchair. It
includes onboard sensors, gyroscopes and computers that allow the device to place its wheels almost like
feet so as to climb stairs and travel over curbs and rocks. He demonstrated it in July in the Senate and at
Vice President Gore's residence.
Those smart miniaturized gyroscopes would presumably be at the heart of a Ginger machine that could
whisk people magically through cities at high speed while never being a parking problem. (Maybe when
you step off Ginger, it will fold itself up into something the size of a briefcase? Maybe you can then
instruct the briefcase to follow you like a puppy?)
Sure, there will be bugs in the system. Literally. In your teeth and in your hair, if you are scooting along at
high speed. But that could be solved by a sophisticated designer encasing you and your Ginger in an
Armani egglike shell.
And replacing the automobile will not be easy. Where would you put your CD player on Ginger? Where
would you put your beer? What about the teenage market -- people who see transportation devices as a
means to make out? These are all difficulties that need to be ironed out. (Two teenagers getting to know
each other standing up at high speed could actually be pretty awesome.)
But whatever the case, Dean Kamen comes out of a classic American mold, Internet pioneer Stewart
Brand observed yesterday.
"Dean is a genuine Gyro Gearloose -- one of the best we have in this generation," he said. "He's in the
tradition of Carl Djerassi and the birth control pill, Thomas Edison and the light bulb, Benjamin Franklin
and the Franklin stove. And they really did change everything."
Whatever Ginger turns out to be, Brand, like other members of the Silicon Valley elite yesterday, was
willing to believe that Kamen was onto something. "I don't think it's cold fusion," he said. "If Steve and
Jeff were given access, their judgment is pretty good about what's new, true and important."
"On the other hand," he said, laughing, "it might be early investors' hype."
© 2001 The Washington Post Company |
