
Toyota Announces Segway Competitor - soundsop
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/08/toyota-announce.html
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13ren
Very cool, especially the video of the hands-free gracefulness.

The small size is also cool, but I suspect these research/demo models have
terrible _battery_ life... _EDIT_ it gives 3 miles, at 3.7 mph
[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/08/01/...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/08/01/financial/f082734D47.DTL)

bet: they pay no patent royalties to Segway.

Also, why not have a seat on them? Seems like so much work, having to stand
all the time. :)

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noonespecial
_bet: they pay no patent royalties to Segway._

Hardware is actually vastly more difficult to patent than software. As its
explained to me, you can't just patent "a two wheeled balancing scooter" the
same way you seem to have been able to patent "buying stuff, but on the
_interwebs_!" You have to patent novel gear systems, a _unique_ balancing
system. (Balance is actually a very simple 3 term formula that can be made
without even a computer using just a few $0.14 op amps. I'm sure Segway has
added considerable flair to this well known concept.) With mechanical systems,
there are literally hundreds of years of prior art.

Toyota couldn't make a scooter that looks just like a segway, but they'll have
no problems with a two wheeled balancing scooter. (Provided a teardown doesn't
reveal a "borrowed" circuit board or gear train.)

I'm not generally a big fan of the patent system as it operates today but I
think its still quite functional in the mechanical device area. Segway spent a
lot of time setting up a good gear/motor/balance system. They should be
protected from somebody just pulling it apart and making castings of the
internals to produce a cheap knockoff. They should _not_ be able to prevent
some one else from doing their own engineering to produce a competing scooter.

~~~
13ren
I agree: don't make the concept/idea patentable, only the specific
implementation. The specific light bulb; the specific telegraphy system.

OTOH, I kinda like the idea of Segway owning the concept - it was a cool idea,
and a lot of work to pull it off. But I don't like the world that owning
concepts so generally would create. I think it's good to encourage many people
to search for ways to do it, and they get to own what they find. If someone
finds the best way, they win big. I think that's great.

I find it interesting that Morse's original patent seemed pretty much along
the lines you say - but then, several years later, he tried to amend it to
cover _any_ way of accomplishing telegraphy. The courts upheld the original,
but not the amendment (if memory serves). The amendment seems to be the style
of patenting software today.

I see no reason, in principle, why patent law can not operate in the same way
in the software world as it does for mechanical systems - despite software
being more abstract.

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noonespecial
I think that software patents have failed us because code is still magic to
the USPO.

One computer that, for example, calculates large prime numbers looks exactly
like another that does the same. The patent system considers the one a copy of
the other, It cannot understand that there are radically different ways to
calculate large primes. In short they actually _don't_ understand software at
all and try to treat computers like gear filled machines.

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13ren
You're right. In a sense, that's also true of comp sci academics and
professionals. The field isn't a _disciplined_ field (unlike mechanics). I
think it's partly immaturity (mechanics is older); partly massive opportunity
(everyone just reinvents everything); and partly the mathematical nature of
comp sci...

In my research, I've seen mathematical models reinvented with different
technologies a decade later: e.g. first SGML and OODBMS; now XML and Java. The
later writers are unaware of the earlier writers.

There's very little knowledge of what's been published. It's hard to find, and
hard to recognize because of different terminology. It can be very hard to
recognize in a deeper sense, whether two domains (and algorithms operating on
them) are actually equivalent (e.g. languages recognized by automata vs.
languages generated by regular expressions).

BTW: Ken Thompson patented his method for searching with regular expressions
(expired 1988).
[http://www.google.com/patents?id=Cx9xAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...](http://www.google.com/patents?id=Cx9xAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=3568156#PPA5,M1)

As far as understanding the fundamentals of computer science, I think we are
very poor at it - much of the mathematics is about very simple and basic stuff
(though the mathematics itself is usually not so simple...).

Mechanics can also be described by mathematics - arguably, _is_ mathematics in
a sense. I don't think that being mathematical is a killer for computer
science patents.

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dmix
It seems like a nice step up from the current Segways.

A lot of work must be done in making these socially acceptable. Segway
definitely failed at that. I think Toyota has the capital and brand to take it
to the next level.

Hopefully they put the resources towards it because I'd like to see what
happens with this.

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jonknee
Step up? It has 1/4th the speed and 1/8th the range. I dig the no-hands
version, but at that speed and range it would be much quicker to just walk.

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softbuilder
I agree. The "stick" version actually makes the Segway look cool. The no-hands
version moves pretty well, although it kind of looks like a ThighMaster on
wheels.

C'mon Toyota! Still waiting for my hover wing like the Hobgoblin had!

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rewind
The actual title is "Toyota Announces Segway Killer". It's kind of like saying
"Toyota Announces Apple Newton Killer".

