In the past, the Segway has often been, well, a little laughed at, if not ridiculed – the personal transportation devices are most often seen with a horde of slightly overweight tourists leaving the “walking” out of a walking tour.
But the latest Segway could be about to change all that. It is a two-wheeled balancing scooter that turns into an adorable mini robot butler when you’re not riding it around town.
The Ninebot Segway can be ridden like a handleless Segway, holding it steady between your legs, travelling up to 30km at speeds of up to 18kph. On arriving at the destination, the transportation device turns into a self-balancing robot, with a screen for a head, and arms.
The robotics platform, developed by Intel and Xiaomi-backed robotics startup Ninebot, which bought Segway in April last year, is capable of sensing its surroundings, recognising objects, people and voices and can be extended to perform a variety of other tasks through a development kit.
The little rolling robot can follow you around, has been shown sending video and taking pictures of its owners, carrying supplies and shopping, all while peering out at the world with two glowing circles for eyes.
The device is part of a new collaborative open robotics development platform powered by Intel’s Atom and RealSense chips and cameras. A developer kit will be available in the second half of 2016, with a commercial version released at a later date.
It remains to be seen whether there will be much appetite for more self-balancing boards after a Christmas of cheap, exploding “hoverboards” . It will likely be at least a year before we find out.
