Re: My god, is this a next century segway?

No, you haven't needed a working model to file a patent for a long time.  I
think it was a decade ago that the USPTO auctioned off what they could, and
discarded the remainder, of their accumulated patent model collection.

Okay, it _could_ 'work', in the sense that you could build something like it,
and it could be pseudo- stable, given enough computers and enough gyroscopes
and enough training wheels, and you could ride it around a parking lot.  Riding
it in traffic, or into an average metropolitan pothole, would be suicidal, as
with the Segway.

My annoyance was directed toward the breathless prose of the press release,
that tries so hard to give the impression that it's a fait accompli, and tosses
in gratuitous buzzphrases like "hydrogen fuel cell" power for good measure,
when it's a _very_ long way from production, and a _much_ longer way from
commercial success.

-Mike-