Toyota invents the Segway!
UPDATE–new YouTube video
Toyota invents the Segway… seven years too late.
However, they did give it gr-r-reat name, the “Winglet Toyota Partner Robot.”
Toyota Motor develops personal transport assistance robot
Kyodo News – Aug. 01 TOKYO, Japan —Takeshi Uchiyamada, executive vice president of Toyota Motor Corp., demonstrates the Winglet Toyota Partner Robot, a personal transport assistant robot...more...
According to Businessweek, the Winglet is, “so named for supposedly helping people move as though they had grown wings.” Of course, there might be problems with using the Winglet since Under Japan’s traffic law, it cannot run on public roadsand only on private land such as shopping centers and factories. When President Bush gave PM Koizumi a Segway as a gift, there was a lot of giggling in the Japanese press that Koizumi was only able to use it in the driveway of the new Prime Minister’s residence.
Also see the previous 3Yen reports…
—Better than the Segway or “Jegway”
—Toshiba invents the Segway
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August 1st, 2008 at 11:36 pm
As in my previous report (2006-11-14 Toshiba Invents the Segway), Segway-type devices are illegal to use in Japan on public roads so the Toshiba transporter’s anti-collision and auto-navigation features are needed for any hope for future government approval. [See Comment 3 for legal details.]
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:15 pm
They call it the “Segway Killer,”
(You can’t kill what’s already dead.)
August 27th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Not to be confused with those things on the ends of airplane wings, commonly referred to as “winglets”.
September 13th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Segway Debuts in Japanese Airport
Sept 12, 2008 16:29 – Nikkei
…SGI Japan Co Ltd, the general sales agent of the Segway… has conducted the demonstration experiments of going on patrol on Segways in highly-public facilities such as Tokyo Big Sight and the Hitachi Seaside Park.
Currently, it is prohibited to ride a Segway on public ways in Japan by the Road Traffic Law….more…