Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Microcap & Penny Stocks : TGL WHAAAAAAAT! Alerts, thoughts, discussion. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: john who wrote (82494)	4/1/2001 9:58:55 AM
From: lindao	Respond to of 150070

i guess i just can't get 'IT' out of my system ... This is IT Revealed: The down-to-earth invention behind sky-high hype Mitch Potter FEATURE WRITER The IT has hit the fan. Nearly three months after word of a mysterious new wonder invention code-named IT sent media into a feeding frenzy of fantastic speculation, the hype is coming home to roost. Is IT a personal jet pack? A three-dimensional hovercraft? A cold-fusion chariot? No. No. And no. The concept that was supposed to be bigger than the Internet, that would actually Change The World As We Know It, turns out to be a scooter. A pretty cool one, mind you, with its untippable gyroscopic technology and eco-friendly powertrain, based on a combination of hydrogen fuel cells and the fabled Stirling engine. And someday, it might even work. So concludes the April issue of Inside magazine, which dispatched a trio of journalists to scope out the real story on eccentric American inventor Dean Kamen's mythic brainchild. But the new issue of media journal Brill's Content scathingly decries IT as nine parts hype, one part hope - fuelled by lazy reporting, the power of the Internet and the public's insatiable appetite to ``find its inner Jetson.'' ``Perhaps the dot-com boom had made us into a nation of cheerful futurists, but whatever the reason, in the frenzy over Kamen's IT, the hallowed journalistic practice of checking with primary sources was left by the wayside,'' concludes Brill's Content. ``Like a self-replicating virus, the story of IT spread through the media. By the time IT reached the morning talk-show circuit, it was being compared to cold fusion.'' The IT affair began Jan. 9, when Inside's Web portal, Inside.com, reported on the Harvard Business School Press' acquisition of a book under the heading: ``What Is `IT'? Book Proposal Heightens Intrigue About Secret Invention Touted as Bigger Than the Internet or PC. A venerable press pays $250,000 for a book on project cloaked in unprecedented secrecy.'' Lending credence to the story was Kamen's track record. The New Hampshire inventor/entrepreneur is often portrayed as a latter-day Edison, a millionaire many times over for successful developments such as the first insulin pump, the portable dialysis machine and the IBOT - an all-terrain wheelchair that climbs stairs. The clincher was the reported involvement of a raft of visionaries: Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs and Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr. In the weeks to come, the Brill's Content probe says, more than 173 media outlets bought into IT - which Kamen had dubbed The Ginger - with breathless speculation. They suggested the concept was anything from ``a wearable car'' (Washington Post) to ``a flying super tuk-tuk'' (Thai journal the Nation). A spree of new Web sites, including theITquestion.com, theGinger.com and Slashdot.org, buzzed with guesses as to what the fuss was about. Kamen, 49, attempted to quell the speculation in late January, maintaining his secret project wasn't likely to be ``earth-shattering.'' And in an interview this month with Brill's Content, he maintained that IT was only one among a range of ongoing projects at DEKA, his New Hampshire-based research and development centre. Inside magazine's Adam Penenberg this week suggested Kamen is downplaying his project merely to keep the competition guessing. He maintains that while scores of major corporations are working toward hydrogen-based vehicles, Kamen's combination of hydrogen cells, gyroscopic technology and clean-burning Stirling engine puts him at the forefront. ``It is designed to mimic how human beings maintain balance. You couldn't tip over. It makes no noise and doesn't need gas.'' But will IT work? And if it does, will it change the world? Penenberg insists maybe, and if so, yes. ``But he has some significant challenges ahead; there is no guarantee he'll succeed.'' Inside and Brill's Content mesh on the issue of IT's fascination. ``Ginger is like a magic word for people. I think it's because people are seeking a magic bullet, technology that can save us from ourselves,'' Penenberg wrote. ``We are tired of being reminded that although cyberspace is here, you look out the window and things look pretty much like they did 30 years ago. No hovercraft such as those in the Jetsons. No elevated escalators. So people want to believe in Dean Kamen. That's why they are fascinated.'' Brill's Content reporter Mark Boal suggested that lust for the future is exactly what makes the hype ridiculous. ``Its kind of fun to look at the history of this - which is quite long. Go look at what people were saying at the 1964 World's Fair about underwater cities. Or look at what people were saying about electricity, when that first came out - that electricity would enable people to communicate telepathically. ``This was a serious discussion. Sounds a bit like IT, don't you think?''