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What is 'IT'?
from the IT's-funny-laugh dept.
From "Service Call," a short story by Philip K. Dick:
The young man flushed, swallowed noisily, tried to grin, and then hurried on huskily, "Sir, I'm the repairman you asked for; I'm here to fix your swibble."
The facetious retort that came to Courtland's mind was one that later on he wished he had used. "Maybe," he wished he had said, "I don't want my swibble fixed. Maybe I like my swibble the way it is." But he didn't say that. Instead, he blinked, pulled the door in slightly, and said, "My what?"
"Yes, sir," the young man persisted. "The record of your swibble installation came to us as a matter of course. Usually we make an automatic adjustment inquiry, but your call preceded that -- so I'm here with complete service equipment. Now, as to the nature of your particular complaint..." Furiously, the young man pawed through the sheaf of papers on his clipboard. "Well, there's no point in looking for that; you can tell me orally. As you probably know, sir, we're not officially part of the vending corporation ... we have what is called an insurance-type coverage that comes into existence automatically, when your purchase is made. Of course, you can cancel the arrangement with us." Feebly, he tried a joke. "I have heard there're a couple of competitors in the service business."
Stern morality replaced humor. Pulling his lank body upright, he finished, "But let me say that we've been in the swibble repair business ever since old R.J. Wright introduced the first A-driven experimental model."
For a time, Courtland said nothing. Phantasmagoria swirled through his head: random quasi-technological thoughts, reflex evaluations and notations of no importance. So swibbles broke down, did they? Big-time business operations ... send out a repairman as soon as the deal is closed. Monopoly tactics ... squeeze out the competition before they have a chance. Kickback to the parent company, probably. Interwoven books.
[...]
A swibble. What the hell was a swibble? And he was on the in, industrially speaking. He read U.S. News, the Wall Street Journal. If there was a swibble he would have heard about it -- unless a swibble was some pip-squeak gadget for the home. Maybe that was it.
You can find this story in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Volume 4: The Minority Report.
Thoughtfully, he added, "In fact I'd say the real war was a war over swibbles. I mean, it was the last war. It was the war between the people who wanted swibbles and those who didn't." Complacently, he finished, "Needless to say, we won."
A little negativity injection... (Score:3)
Personal Transport (hover/copter/sterling-driven/bike/scooter/wheelch air/backpack) has no chance of generating $60 billion in 5 years at $2k a pop. In order for it to make that much money, pretty much everybody in America needs to buy one. In order for that to happen, it needs to be a 100% replacement for a car, because most people will not spend two grand on a second vehicle in addition to their car.
Cars protect from the elements (rain, cold, etc); they provide some protection in accidents (metal frame, air bags, seat belts, etc); they allow you to carry passengers and luggage; they can travel at high speeds (as in >30 MPH) over long distances; they are hard for a non-expert theif to steal.
Given that criteria, a personal craft that can not take you from L.A. to Vegas at 70 MPH, be driven comfortably through Detroit in January, and crash into a garbage truck head-on without killing you... will never replace cars, and therefore will be nothing more than a toy for yuppies and the "Earth First" crowd.
Teleporter - The problem I have always had with sci-fi transport devices is that they don't actually move you. They disintigrate you and then replicate you. Most of us would rather not be destroyed and simultaniously replaced with a copy that has our memories. Also, it can't be done with current knowledge.
Power generation - I could see that becoming a popular option. A lot of home-owners, including me, would have gone solar a long time ago if it was cheap enough. However, nobody can make $60 billion in the home appliance market. The margins are simply not high enough, and if they were you would face stiff competition within a year or two. Also, most urban dwellers live in apartments, where power and utility costs are usually hidden in their rent payments.
Waste Disposal / Water Delivery / etc. faces the same problems as the generator theories.
It seems to me that for "IT" to live up to the hype, it must be something that none of us have thought of, or ever thought we would want. After all, nobody thought we would want to do our computing with a mouse-driven GUI before the XEROX engineers thought of it, and nobody thought they could sell one until Jobs visited PARC labs... but now it is hard to imagine selling any sort of client software without it.
To quote Faith No More (Score:4)
It's It
What is it
It's it
What is it
Re:IT... (Score:5)
That patent would seem to suggest you're on the right track . . .
Let's use the USPTO to our advantage (Score:5)
- 6,092,249 - Constant pressure seating system [164.195.100.11]
- 6,062,600 - Anti-tipping mechanism [164.195.100.11]
- 6,062,023 - Cnatilevered crankshaft stirling cycle machine [164.195.100.11]
- 5,975,225 - Transportation vehicles with stability enhancement ising CG modification [164.195.100.11]
- 5,971,091 - Transportation vehicles and methods [164.195.100.11]
- 5,794,730 - Indication system for vehicles [164.195.100.11]
- 5,791,425 - Control loop for transportation vehicles [164.195.100.11]
- 5,701,965 - Human transporter [164.195.100.11]
- 5,522,568 - Position stick with automatic trim control [164.195.100.11]
Hope this helps someone figure it out...IT... (Score:4)
Can be assembled quickly with hex wrenches and a screwdriver...
That makes me think of a pair of rollerblades, or one of those scooter thingies!
2 models, the metro and the pro; Just those naming conventions make me think of rollerblades or scooters, too, with the metro being an economical version, and the pro with additional bells and whistles...
And the invention will "profoundly affect our environment and the way people live worldwide. It will be an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities."
It sounds like he's describing something both economical and ecological, as an alternative to... cars? Buses?
I'm thinking... electrical scooters or rollerblades, that can be chained together, like links!
Say, something like a shopping cart sized device, allowing one to sit or stand, with safe and clean electrical power, allowing one to move at, say, 10mph for 25 or 35 miles?
Able to link and chain, to create caravans...
It'll confound people because it isn't quite a car, nor a sidewalk friendly device...
And it'll be definitely fun!
Also, it could have an additional contact strip, to draw power, inductively, from embedded power strips!
Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
Hovercraft.... (Score:3)
1,000 bucks says that's what it is. And the information in the article seems to support this theory, like having the zoning laws changed, it being kind of humorous, etc.
Re:IT... (Score:3)
Re:What IT Is And Isn't (Score:4)
IT probably stands for Individual Transport.
It will be an alternative to the car. Thus the reference to the 'billion dollar old line companies' and 'social institutions' - in America, and in many places around the world, the car is a powerful social symbol.
The model named 'Metro' fits with a metropolitan-based transportation device.
Kamen has most recently worked on the 'active' wheelchair, which 'transports' an 'individual'. It would be natural that his mind is still focused on 'individual transport'.
Screwdrivers and hexwrenches indicate a mostly mechanical device, although I wouldn't preclude some pretty smart electronics. His active wheelchair can beat a human in a shoving match and stay balanced, no mean feat.
Anyway, I would bet on IT being some adaptation of the active wheelchair technology. Some sort of powered scooter you strap to your legs? Motorized shoes? Power roller-blades?
Salon Article (Score:3)
http://www.salon.com/books/wire/2001/01/09/ging
IT (Score:3)
Don't we already? (Score:3)
Interesting... (Score:3)
But if you do a Google search on "ginger dean kamen", you get nothing. Not even any wack rumors. Deja doesn't turn up anything either.
So, it's got me curious, which is a pretty good PR trick if nothing else.
--Seen
Re:Seriously... (Score:5)
He might run into problems with the Stirling engine, too. The development of a marketable Stirling device has eluded the brightest engineering minds since Robert Stirling, a Scottish minister, patented the first version in 1816. The basic principle of Stirling's external combustion engine is simple: A chamber is filled with a gas that expands as it is heated by a small heat source, such as a propane flame, and contracts when cooled. The process operates a piston and drives the engine. The advantage? Cheap, local fuels can be used to run the engines, and Kamen has adapted his model to produce electricity instead of mechanical power.
But producing the thing is a more complex matter. While many have tried to use Stirlings to power drive shafts for vehicles, they have proved too expensive to manufacture on a mass scale, and they're not always efficient enough. One low tech problem is designing seals that guard against waste as the heat is transferred into a form that does useful work.
Deka's version heats a chamber containing helium, under pressure, and Kamen says it can run on gasoline, propane, fuel oil, diesel, alcohol, or even solar power - with one-fifth the emissions of a gas stove. Deka's engineers think they'll succeed where others have failed because they've ironed out all the kinks. "We looked at the history of the Stirling - all the money and time and expertise poured into it - and identified a half-dozen key goofs that previous teams had made," says project leader Chris Langenfeld. "Seventy percent of it was a materials challenge. We had to track down the right composites to use as seals."
Kamen hopes that his family of Stirlings, five years in development, will soon bring portable electricity to nations without a reliable power grid - or any grid at all. He envisions briefcase-sized Stirlings powering cell phones and cell towers, as well as purifying water. He aims to have them on the market in the next two years, and is currently working on the marketing issues - like how developing nations will be able to afford bulk purchases of the engines, which are projected to cost $1,500 apiece.
I think our friend Ross C. Bracket may have what IT is... a stirling engine powered scooter(?)?
Ginger (Score:4)
The most intriguing match I found was to the character 'Ginger' in Chicken Run.
A quote from the review "<I>...partly thanks to Ginger, who believes that he'll be able to teach her and the rest of the chickens to fly</I>".
Could this be an invention that will help us 'learn to fly'??
Another Article (Score:3)
http://www.inside.com/jcs/Story?article_id=2021
Wow... (Score:4)
According to the proposal, another investor, Credit Suisse First Boston, expects Kamen's invention to make more money in its first year than any start-up in history, predicting Kamen will be worth more in five years than Bill Gates.
Bill Gates has more than US$60 billion to his name. That means this company would go from $0 to >$60 billion in five years? My first reaction is that this is complete horseshit, but if Credit Suisse First Boston [csfb.com], an arm of a major Swiss bank, is behind it, it must certainly carry some weight.
But think about the sheer logistics behind rocketing to more than $60 billion in corporate worth in only five years... it absolutely boggles the mind!
Jobs told Kamen the invention would be as significant as the PC, the proposal says.
If Steve Jobs says this, he just might be on to something. But how many things have been trumpeted as "PC replacements" in the past, oh, ten years?
--
What Are The Chances? (Score:3)
I know what IT is! (Score:4)
And people are having such a hard time figuring out what IT is...
:)
Re:IT... (Score:3)
it's obviously a razor scooter.
bezos is behind the curve again.
Re:What IT Is And Isn't (Score:4)
Bah. None of you are thinking big enough. I say IT stands for Instantaneous Transport That's obviously why he needed to build 2 of them - one to transmit, and one to receive.
OK, so I know I'm dreaming, but I want personal teleportation...
-Cyclopatra
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
Seriously... (Score:4)
My personal hope is that the Stirling engine discussed on page 2 of this Wired article [wirednews.com] is approaching commercial viability. Cheap portable power generation using virtually any kind of fuel? Sounds awesome and of great potential beneifet to humanity. Anyone close to the project have any inside info? Anyone familiar with this technology want to further explain its coolness?