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To: Art Bechhoefer who wrote (18321)	1/18/2001 8:36:26 PM
From: david james	Respond to of 60323

OT - Ginger ..... And of course the inventor knows what it is - ha! This was sent to me .... Some PR person yet to be named, knows that "Everybody loves a mystery." S/he is creating a big buzz about an inventor named Dean Kamen and his new "civilization altering invention," code named "Ginger" If you haven't already heard this buzz you likely will soon. If that doesn't hook you now, ya may as well delete this message. I don't know what it is either. What is known indicates that it's a very small personal transportation device. Most probably a motorized scooter rather than a personal jet pack. Kamen recently patented a wheel chair that does stairs and uneven ground. A look at his most recent patent award may answer a lot of questions. Due to the way the USPTO website works, the URL is too long to reliably send in an email. Try this three step process. Click this link to the US patent Office's lookup engine, 164.195.100.11 Enter the patent number below in the search window. Patent Number: 5971091 Finally, click the link that appears under TITLE If you want to see the drawings that accompany the patent filing, you'll need a browser that displays .tiff images. I don't know what to tell you. Netscape 4.76 says it needs a plug in, IE 5.5 shows a blank page. Here's what I found decoding the page source codes. Netscape and IE will ask if you want to save the following URLs to disk. This makes sense because you can then view it in ACDsee or other image browsers and Paint programs. Each image is about 60k. Page 1 ,3, 4, 5, 6, 7 have interesting drawings, but I doubt that they reveal the actual shape of the Ginger device. Page 1 indicates that the device is a personal transporter - looking like a motorized Lazer Scooter. The other drawings appear to be a wheel chair which can climb stairs - the subject of one of Kamen's recently announced inventions. Nevertheless, given the hype on this item, it's fair to guess that this is a good indication of what we have to look forward to: (if you forward this message, turn Word Wrap OFF) patimg2.uspto.gov; ImgFormat=tif" patimg2.uspto.gov; ImgFormat=tif patimg2.uspto.gov; ImgFormat=tif patimg2.uspto.gov; ImgFormat=tif patimg2.uspto.gov; ImgFormat=tif patimg2.uspto.gov; ImgFormat=tif patimg2.uspto.gov; ImgFormat=tif patimg2.uspto.gov; ImgFormat=tif patimg2.uspto.gov; ImgFormat=tif patimg2.uspto.gov &ImgFormat=tif" patimg2.uspto.gov &ImgFormat=tif" There are 40 image pages in the patent filing, I presume you can see the pattern above if you want page 12-40 _____________________________________________________________________ The Hype so far: Apple CEO Steve Jobs thinks cities will be built around IT (he has not been quoted calling it "insanely great") Journalist Steve Kemper says IT will "sweep over the world and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking" Venture capitalist John Doerr invested in IT Jeff Bezos of Amazon.comsays there'll be no trouble selling IT Investor Credit Suisse First Boston expects IT to make more money in its first year than any startup in history _____________________________________________________________________ So who is Dean Kamen? I asked Altavista and google: altavista.com google.com Some selected links: MIT: web.mit.edu RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) (slow) rit.edu An interview in a college paper: huskiebrigade.com WIRED: wirednews.com About.com inventors.about.com Heinz Award awards.heinz.org ragerobotics.org ragerobotics.org ragerobotics.org A company where he is president: dekaresearch.com This appears to be an organization started and sponsored the inventor: usfirst.org usfirst.org usfirst.org