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投稿者 佐藤雅彦 日時 2001 年 1 月 16 日 11:31:04:
Ginger についての最近の報道
●今朝のフジテレビの「トクダネ」で「ジンジャー」をめぐる米国での
騒動をちょこっと伝えていました。
数日前から米国のメディアの物好きな部分はこの話題で持ちきりで、
ひょっとすると、「画期的な新発明」というアナウンスで“期待感”を
煽ることで、ナスダックの転落をくい止めようとしているのかもね。
●「ジンジャー」騒ぎを見ると、私は十年近く前にTBS「３時にあ
いましょう」で放送されたズッコケシーンを思い出してしまう。
当時、林家三平門下のダークホース（ｋｋｋ…）だった峰竜太＆海
老名みどり夫妻の間で、夫の浮気をめぐって離婚があるというの
が芸能記者たちの下馬評で、その日は15時から海老名邸でみどり
夫人が「重大発表」するという告知があった。芸能記者たちは「すわ
離婚発表か」と色めき立ち、海老名邸の縁側にカメラの放列ができて
発表を今かいまかと待っていた。 で、「３時にあいましょう」はタイトル
コールに次いで、そのまま海老名邸の現場中継。みどり夫人の登場
を、息を凝らして待つ。 で、みどり夫人が登場。 開口一番、
「こんど私、推理作家になります。」
自分の本の宣伝でした。 芸能レポーターそろってずっこけ。前田
忠明（だっけかな）なんぞは、その場で怒りをぶちまける始末。
「３時のあなた」のキャスターだった“芸能界のジュリー”こと――
どこがじゃ〜【笑】――亀和田武氏は、苦虫をつぶした表情で、どう
フォローしたものかと困惑していたものです。
●「ジンジャー」ってのも、そういう類[たぐ]いかも知れませんな。
聖子と郷ひろみの離婚コンビの“夢のデュエット”みたいな
前評判ばかりのね……。
●ちなみに、某UFO関係のMLでは、「反重力マシンでないか」
「いや、記憶を脳にダウンロードできるマインドコントロール装置だ」
などと、なかなかファンタジックな議論になっているようです。
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英文記事をそのまま転載します。
What Is 'IT'? Book Proposal Heightens Intrigue About Secret Invention
Touted as Bigger Than the Internet or PC
http://www.inside.com/jcs/Story?article_id=20218&pod_id=8
Steve Jobs quoted on accomplished scientist's new device: 'If enough
people see the machine you won't have to convince them to architect
cities around it. It'll just happen.' A venerable press pays $250,000
for a book on project cloaked in unprecedented secrecy. EXCLUSIVE
by PJ Mark
Tuesday , January 09, 2001 01:43 p.m.
Harvard Business School Press executive editor Hollis Heimbouch has just
paid $250,000 for a book about IT -- but neither the editor nor the
agent, Dan Kois of The Sagalyn Literary Agency, knows what IT is.
All they do know: IT, also code-named Ginger, is an invention developed
by 49-year-old scientist Dean Kamen, and the subject of a planned book
by journalist Steve Kemper. According to Kemper's proposal, IT will
change the world, and is so extraordinary that it has drawn the
attention of technology visionaries Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs and the
investment dollars of pre-eminent Silicon Valley venture capitalist John
Doerr, among others.
Kemper -- who has been published in Smithsonian, National Geographic and
Outside among others -- has had exclusive access to Kamen and the
engineers at his New Hampshire-based research and development company,
DEKA, for the past year and a half. He tags the proposed book as Soul of
the New Machine meets The New New Thing and won over his agent and
publisher with e-mails describing the project in carefully couched
language. He also included an amusing narrative of a meeting between
Bezos, Jobs, Doerr and Kamen.
The invention itself is as interesting as the inventor. Kamen is 'a true
eccentric, cantankerous and opinionated, a great character,' the
proposal says, with large gaps when it comes to pop culture.
In the proposal, Doerr calls Kamen -- who was just awarded the National
Medal of T
echnology, the country's highest such award -- a combination
of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. Doerr also says, a touch ominously,
that he had been sure that he wouldn't see the development of anything
in his lifetime as important as the World Wide Web -- until he saw IT.
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. Jobs told Kamen the invention would be as significant
as the PC, the proposal says.
And though there are no specifics in the proposal as to what the
invention is, there are some tantalizing clues. Is IT an energy source?
Some sort of environmentally friendly personal transport device? One
editor who saw the proposal went as far as to speculate -- jokingly
(perhaps) -- that IT was a type of personal hovering craft.
Consider the following items, culled from the proposal:
IT is not a medical invention.
In a private meeting with Bezos, Jobs and Doerr, Kamen assembled two
Gingers -- or ITs -- in 10 minutes, using a screwdriver and hex wrenches
from components that fit into a couple of large duffel bags and some
cardboard boxes.
The invention has a fun element to it, because once a Ginger was turned
on, Bezos started laughing his ''loud, honking laugh.''
There are possibly two Ginger models, named Metro and Pro -- and the
Metro may possibly cost less than $2,000.
Bezos is quoted as saying that IT ''is a product so revolutionary,
you'll have no problem selling it. The question is, are people going to
be allowed to use it?''
Jobs is quoted as saying: ''If enough people see the machine you won't
have to convince them to architect cities around it. It'll just
happen.''
Kemper says the invention will ''sweep over the world and change lives,
cities, and ways of thinking.''
The ''core technology and its implementations'' will, according to
Kamen, ''have a big, broad impact not only on social institutions but
some billion-dollar old-line companies.'' 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 will be a mass-market consumer product ''likely to run afoul of
existing regulations and or inspire new ones,'' according to Kemper. The
invention will also likely require ''meeting with city planners,
regulators, legislators, large commercial companies and university
presidents about how cities, companies and campuses can be retro-fitted
for Ginger.''
The invention itself is as interesting as the inventor. Kamen -- ''a
true eccentric, cantankerous and opinionated, a great character,''
according to the proposal -- dropped out of colleg
e in his 20s, then
invented the first drug infusion pump; he later created the first
portable insulin pump and dialysis machine.
Kamen, an avid aviator who commutes via a helicopter, is also the
founder of FIRST -- For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and
Technology -- a nonprofit organization that encourages young people to
pursue studies and careers in math and science. He's a single man
obsessed with his work and out of touch with popular culture. According
to the proposal, Kamen was seated at a White House dinner next to two
people he'd never heard of: Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty.
Kamen's most recent invention is the iBot, an off-road wheelchair that
can climb stairs, cover sand and gravel and rise to balance on two
wheels. A prototype iBot was showcased by wheelchair-bound journalist
John Hockenberry at last year's TED conference in Monterrey, Calif.; the
demonstration was greeted by wild applause.
IT/Ginger won't be revealed until 2002, the proposal says. No one has
seen the project except Kamen, Kemper, the engineers and the investors
-- which include Doerr, a partner in the venture capital firm of Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers, which helped launch Netscape, Amazon, Juniper
Networks, Excite, and @Home, among others; and Michael Schmertzler,
managing director of Credit Suisse First Boston. Others who have seen
the invention and signed confidentiality agreements include minor
investors Paul Allaire, CEO of Xerox; and Vern Loucks, recently retired
CEO of Baxter. Bezos, Jobs and writer/venture capitalist Randy Komisar
sit on the advisory board. Kamen retains 85 percent of his new company,
according to the proposal.
Why the secrecy? Kamen fears, as he states in a letter to Kemper that is
included in the proposal, that ''huge corporations'' might catch wind of
the invention and ''use their massive resources to erect obstacles
against us or, worse, simply appropriate the technology by assigning
hundreds of engineers to catch up to us, and thousands of employees to
produce it in their plants.''
But such secrecy may have been enough to turn publishers away. ''The
Internet changed the world, too'' said one editor who considered the
project, ''but books about it don't really sell.'' As for the
quarter-million-dollar price tag for North American rights: on the one
hand, it doesn't seem to be a lot for a book about an invention which
has mesmerized such well-known technology moguls. On the other, $250,000
is a lot to pay for a story about a product that hasn't been seen,
defined or named.
''We were well aware of Kamen,'' says book editor Heimbouch, who says
she's been publishing in this technology circle for a long time.'' (The
bestselling The Monk and the Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley
Entrepreneur by Komisar is hers.) So jumping on board for the book
wasn't such a dilemma. Besides, says Heimbou
ch, Harvard Business School
Press had intended to approach Kamen about doing a book anyway. ''He's
an inventor of great technologies that make people's lives better,'' she
says.
Harvard Business School Press, a division of Harvard Business School
Publishing, is a wholly owned, nonprofit subsidiary of Harvard
University. The Sagalyn Agency retains all but North American rights to
the book.
SURFING THE APOCALYPSE
http://www.surfingtheapocalypse.com
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Mystery invention "Ginger" rumoured to be wearable car
Source: SMH|Published: Friday January 12, 7:38 PM
http://www.theage.com.au/breaking/0101/12/A13288-2001Jan12.html
A mystery innovation by one of America's most remarkable inventors is
rumoured to be a wearable car, according to a report in today's edition
of The Washington Post.
Secretive inventor Dean Kamen of Manchester, New Hampshire, whose
previous inventions include an insulin pump and a wheelchair that can
climb stairs, has been the subject of intense speculation following
reports that Harvard Business School Press is paying a quarter of a
million dollars ($A447,000) for a book on his latest invention -
codenamed "Ginger".
The Post cited "digerati" sources in Silicon Valley as saying they are
convinced "Ginger" is a personal vehicle resembling a pogo stick with a
single wheel under it that you cannot push over, no matter how hard you
try.
"Sort of 'BC' meets George Jetson in the form of a Razor on steroids,"
as Paul Saffo of the Institute for the Future put it to The Post.
If Ginger is indeed a kind of 100 kph wheeled witch's broom, there would
be a sort of outlandish logic to it, given the inventor's background.
Kamen, who according to Wired magazine holds a Guinness record for the
longest span of time spent dressed in denim, has a history of socially
motivated invention, The Post reported. A physicist and engineer, he
holds more than 100 patents, several for quality-of-life devices,
including the portable dialysis machine.
His most recent invention was the Independence 3000 IBot Transporter - a
sort of intelligent wheelchair. It includes onboard sensors, gyroscopes
and computers that allow the device to place its wheels almost like feet
so as to climb stairs and travel over curbs and rocks.
He demonstrated it in July in the Senate and at Vice President Al Gore's
residence.
The Post said those smart miniaturised gyroscopes would presumably be at
the heart of a "Ginger" machine that could whisk people magically
through cities at high speed while never being a parking problem.
The Post warned that there will be bugs in the system. Literally. In
your teeth and in your hair, if you are scooting along at high speed.
SURFING THE APOCALYPSE
http://www.surfingtheapocalypse.com
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Ginger: The Wheel Thing?
Gadget Is Rumored to Be A High-Tech Unicycle
By Joel Garreau
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 12, 2001; Page C01
What could it be?
Respected inventor Dean Kamen of Manchester, N.H., we are told, has come up
with a world-moving invention that will be "an alternative to products that
are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous, and often frustrating, especially
for people in the cities."
Has the man reinvented sex?
Harvard Business School Press is paying a quarter of a million dollars for a
book on the subject. According to the book proposal, Amazon.com CEO Jeff
Bezos says it's a "product so revolutionary, you'll have no problem selling
it." Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs says it will change the ways cities are
designed. Venture capitalist John Doerr has invested millions in it.
The code name for this product is "Ginger." What could it be?
If anybody actually knows, they're not talking.
But the digerati of Silicon Valley who know Kamen well were convinced they
had the answer yesterday.
Ginger, they claimed, is a wearable car.
Speculation and even drawings of a purported patent application flew
feverishly around the Web.
The drawing looks like a pogo stick with a single wheel under it that you
can't push over, no matter how hard you try. "Sort of 'B.C.' meets George
Jetson in the form of a Razor on steroids," as Paul Saffo of the Institute
for the Future put it yesterday.
If Ginger is indeed a kind of 60 mph wheeled witch's broom, there would be a
sort of outlandish logic to it, given the inventor's background.
Kamen, who according to Wired magazine holds a Guinness record for the
longest interrupted span of time spent dressed in denim, has a history of
socially motivated invention. A physicist and engineer, he holds more than
100 patents, several for quality-of-life devices, including the portable
dialysis machine.
His latest invention was the Independence 3000 IBot Transporter -- a sort of
intelligent wheelchair. It includes onboard sensors, gyroscopes and computers
that allow the device to place its wheels almost like feet so as to climb
stairs and travel over curbs and rocks. He demonstrated it in July in the
Senate and at Vice President Gore's residence.
Those smart miniaturized gyroscopes would presumably be at the heart of a
Ginger machine that could whisk people magically through cities at high speed
while never being a parking problem. (Maybe when you step off Ginger, it will
fold itself up into something the size of a briefcase? Maybe you can then
instruct the briefcase to follow you like a puppy?)
Sure, there will be bugs in the system. Literally. In your teeth and in your
hair, if you are scooting along at high speed. But that could be solved by a
sophisticated designer encasing you and your Ginger in an Armani egglike
shell.
And replacing the automobile will no
t be easy. Where would you put your CD
player on Ginger? Where would you put your beer? What about the teenage
market -- people who see transportation devices as a means to make out? These
are all difficulties that need to be ironed out. (Two teenagers getting to
know each other standing up at high speed could actually be pretty awesome.)
But whatever the case, Dean Kamen comes out of a classic American mold,
Internet pioneer Stewart Brand observed yesterday.
"Dean is a genuine Gyro Gearloose -- one of the best we have in this
generation," he said. "He's in the tradition of Carl Djerassi and the birth
control pill, Thomas Edison and the light bulb, Benjamin Franklin and the
Franklin stove. And they really did change everything."
Whatever Ginger turns out to be, Brand, like other members of the Silicon
Valley elite yesterday, was willing to believe that Kamen was onto something.
"I don't think it's cold fusion," he said. "If Steve and Jeff were given
access, their judgment is pretty good about what's new, true and important."
"On the other hand," he said, laughing, "it might be early investors' hype."
c 2001 The Washington Post Company
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I found this on Yahoo news today and looks like
someone gets an F for honesty but an A for marketing
savvy:
Friday January 12 5:18 PM ET
Secret Invention 'Ginger' May Be Motorized Scooter
By Eric Auchard and Tim Castle
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - The mystery invention
code-named ''Ginger'' that has set the technology
world abuzz may be little more than a motorized
miniscooter, judging from a recent patent application
that came to light on Friday.
A Dec. 14, 2000, filing with the World Intellectual
Property Organization available on the Internet at
http://www.wipo.org describes a ``class of
transportation vehicles for carrying an individual
over ground ... that is unstable with respect to
tipping when ... not powered.''
A picture of this ``personal mobility vehicle'' shows
what appears to be a young girl balanced on a
two-wheeled scooter. The patent application fits
descriptions made in broadcast reports by people
claiming to have seen prototypes of the vehicle.
A proposal for a planned book about the mysterious
invention described it as possibly more important than
the World Wide Web and capable of generating fantastic
riches, exciting a wave of media speculation over the
machine.
Harvard Business School Press is said to have paid
$250,000 for the book detailing the device, also
referred to as ``IT,'' which is set to be unveiled in
2002 by millionaire inventor Dean Kamen. Kamen's
previous inventions include a portable insulin pump
and a wheelchair that climbs stairs.
A spokeswoman for the publisher declined to comment on
Friday.
Called Easy To Assemble
The invention is said to take just 10 minutes to
a
ssemble using simple tools, according to details from
the book proposal published by media industry watchers
Inside.com. Each Ginger object could cost less than
$2,000. Top computer industry figures and investment
bankers were named as backers, Inside.com said.
In a statement issued on Thursday, Kamen, 49, declined
to reveal much about the device, saying, ``While our
projects are in the development phase and have client
confidentiality requirements, it is impossible for us
to comment further.''
Calls to Kamen and his company, DEKA Research of
Manchester, New Hampshire, seeking comment on the
patent application were not returned.
After seeing a prototype, Jeff Bezos, the founder of
online retailer Amazon.com (news - web sites), was
quoted as saying that IT ``is a product so
revolutionary you'll have no problem selling it. The
question is, are people going to be allowed to use
it?''
A scooter like one described in Kamen's recent
application might piggyback on the popularity of
Razor, the manually powered scooter that became a hit
with American youth over the past year. More than 5
million of the devices have been sold, inspiring a
host of imitators, Razor USA LLC said in December.
Netizens Speculate
Ginger was the subject of an hourlong U.S. talk show
on CNN. On the Internet, debate raged over what the
device might be, with opinions raging from
enthusiastic to sarcastic to bombastic.
Some questioned if the device was not, in fact, a
personal Hovercraft, with the patent meant to throw
the public off the real scent. Others argued it was an
updated version of Kamen's wheelchairs or a
sophisticated can opener or a clothes iron.
``So what! This is all hype to sell a book,'' one
skeptic said on an online message board. ``You people
in the media need to be a little more skeptical. If
it's so great, why does it have to be a secret?''
Revolutionary personal transport systems have been
revealed to an expectant, and disbelieving, world
before.
In January 1985 British inventor Sir Clive Sinclair
unveiled his three-wheeler C5, a kind of surfboard
tricycle in which plucky drivers lay on their backs
and navigated the roads feet first.
Powered by battery and pedaling, the low-level vehicle
was invisible to trucks. It was immediately condemned
by Britain's Automobile Association as ``a hazard to
the occupant and other road users.''
Sales were minimal and production stopped within
months. Sinclair's reputation as the distinguished
inventor of cheap calculators and computers was in
tatters, his C5 a national joke.
A satirical song occasioned by the invention of the C5
contains the line ``Don't want a Jag, don't want a
Merc, I want to look like an absolute berk (idiot).''
=====
Don't worry. It will all become clear when you die.
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'Ginger' Inventor Says
Speculation F
ar Overblown
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010114/ts/tech_ginger_dc_5.html
1-15-01
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The inventor who has been the subject of a frenzy of
speculation over a new gadget said to be more important than the Internet has
stepped forward to deny that he has any such ``Earth-shattering'' project in
the works.
``We have a promising project, but nothing of the Earth-shattering nature
that people are conjuring up,'' Dean Kamen, president of Manchester, New
Hampshire-based DEKA Research, said in a statement referring to one of his
forthcoming inventions.
Kamen, the millionaire inventor of devices such as a portable insulin pump
and a wheelchair that climbs stairs, said he felt compelled to comment on
speculation arising from an ''unfortunate, unapproved leak'' in a book
proposal about him.
Kamen's invention is reportedly the subject of a forthcoming book from
Harvard Business School Press.
The planned book about the mystery invention described it as having the
backing of high-tech leaders such as Apple Computer Co. co-founder Steve Jobs
and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and to be of great social and economic
importance, according to an article by Inside.com published on Tuesday.
The story set in motion a wave of speculation in media and over the Internet
as to whether the invention might be some revolutionary new type of computer,
or some sort of personal transportation device that functioned like a
Hovercraft.
Kamen, who had remained quiet initially, issued a statement late on Friday
saying that several of the comments cited in the book proposal had been taken
out of context. Harvard Business School Press has declined to comment on any
plans for such a book.
``The leaked proposal quoted several prominent technology leaders out of
context, without their doubts, risks and maybes included,'' Kamen said in a
statement issued late on Friday. ''This, together with spirited speculation
about the unknown, has led to expectations that are beyond the mere
whimsical.''
Kamen was recently awarded a National Medal of Technology.
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題名には必ず「阿修羅さんへ」と記述してください。