September 24, 2009 - 9:47 am
Honda, using technology gleaned from their Asimo robot, have trumped the Segway and I WANT ONE!
Honda has introduced the U3-X. It weights around 22 pounds and is about the size of a large skate board, small enough to be carried around. (It even has a handy dandy carrying handle.) It’s not as fast, (only about 4mph). But what makes the U3-X really cool is its omni-directional travel. It looks like your just floating around.
The bad news is they don’t have any plans to sell them. I’m guessing partly because they’re worried about exposing their technology and partly because they would cost eleventy-billion dollars each.
But seriously. C’mon guys! If I can’t have my flying car, at least give me a shot at a floating chair!! Then again, you could argue that this puts us one step closer to being the gelatinous blobs from Wall-E (clicky). [Edit: LOL!*After* I posted this, the original article was updated with a pic from Wall-E. THEY STOLE MY JOKE!!]
You can read the complete article. (Clicky clicky.)
The article had a better video from the press conference when I first read it, but it seems that video is not working now. [Edit: They replaced it with MY Wall-E joke!] So here’s a promo I found on YouTube:
YouTube link