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Ogo, a new take on personal transportation

ogotechnology.com

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Re: Ogo, a new take on personal transportation

#171

Post by andy_ppp »

lotharbot wrote: post #123
andy_ppp wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not sure why everyone is downvoting this! It doesn't help that I'm hovering around 501 karma :-) Seriously though I'll never use downvoting (apart from say, racist, homophobic, rude and extremely wrong comments) because I think it's bad for discussion; if your aim is blandness then I would say that downvoting is great but I still maintain that a comment with lots of people in disagreement (for it and again…

as pg has said many times, it's OK to downvote for disagreement. I try not to downvote for mere disagreement, though. There has to be something more to the comment that makes it not merely disagreeable, but a net negative to conversation. In this particular case, the Wall-E association serves to further the stigma for the disabled by emphasizing laziness, when part of the design for this device is to reduce stigma by…

I don't think that obese people should be stigmatised as lazy... Guess that is why I didn't think I should be downvoted!

Re: Ogo, a new take on personal transportation

#172

Post by prawn »

mrweasel wrote: post #54
rasur wrote: post #2

So, this isn't mainly for disabled people, I take it?

The title is a bit weird. I don't understand why they call it "personal transportation". I mean it is personal transportation, for people in wheel chairs, but not a new take on personal transportation in the way Segway tried to be.

It is personal transportation, just focused on a particular set of users.

Re: Ogo, a new take on personal transportation

#173

Post by lotharbot »

andy_ppp wrote: post #171
lotharbot wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as pg has said many times, it's OK to downvote for disagreement. I try not to downvote for mere disagreement, though. There has to be something more to the comment that makes it not merely disagreeable, but a net negative to conversation. In this particular case, the Wall-E association serves to further the stigma for the disabled by emphasizing laziness, when part of the design for this device is to reduce stigma by…

I don't think that obese people should be stigmatised as lazy... Guess that is why I didn't think I should be downvoted!

sometimes downvotes aren't about what you believe, but about how clearly you say it, or how you fail to say it clearly enough to avoid critical misunderstandings.

Re: Ogo, a new take on personal transportation

#174

Post by dereke »

harryjo wrote: post #163
kevinmchugh wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of this great TED talk, where one person is jealous that someone with prosthetic legs can change their height: https://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_aesthetic...

Hmm, how does the law (DMV, passport office, etc) deal with that?

I don't think it is illegal to wear heels so probably in a similar way.

Re: Ogo, a new take on personal transportation

#175

Post by triangleman »

cushychicken wrote: post #101
triangleman wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with the spirit of your post, let us step back and think clearly about where your criticism lies. Think about what it means to "hack" on something. Today we often use the term to describe a programmer working feverishly on his software project "hacking away". But based on your use of the term ("growth-hacking") we can see that it can often be used in the sense of hacking a problem into something more ma…

Man, you completely missed the point of what OP was saying in your rush to talk semantics. He was saying that this product showcases a lot of thoughtful development to solve a problem that a non-trivial number of people have that can't really be solved through marketing shortcuts. And I think we both know exactly the sort of marketing shortcuts he/she is talking about - the apptification of everything, the hype endem…

I didn't miss the point. Of course I agree that it's wonderful to see a product that solves an actual problem. My point was that even in the case of a clearly useful and "marketable" product, it is not at all clear that it will ultimately be successful and change people's lives. The Segway itself is a great example of this: The product works, it does what it claims it will, but nobody owns one. Society is no better off because of it, unfortunately.

I used the rubric of "hacking" to demonstrate that there is a middle road--between inflated valuations/expectations and pure engineering prowess--that will ultimately create life-changing solutions to problems.

Think about Apple's successful products: They did nothing new compared to what was already on the market. But by creatively removing features they made their products more marketable and ended up changing the world.

Re: Ogo, a new take on personal transportation

#176

Post by yunghu »

notahacker wrote: post #67
DavidSJ wrote: post #13

Looks very cool. One thing I noticed about the video introduction is the speaker is explicitly talking to the viewer as if he or she is not the target audience, e.g. "while you and I may take this for granted ..." and "the disabled are exactly the same as you and me ..."

The video is presumably made to be shared amongst a wider audience than the target market. And I guess that for a disabled person it would be a huge psychological win to have able-bodied people looking with envy rather than sympathy at their means of locomotion.

> it would be a huge psychological win to have able-bodied people looking with envy rather than sympathy at their means of locomotion

What kind of horrible person get a kick out of knowing other people are envious?

Re: Ogo, a new take on personal transportation

#177

Post by jusben1369 »

notahacker wrote: post #67
DavidSJ wrote: post #13

Looks very cool. One thing I noticed about the video introduction is the speaker is explicitly talking to the viewer as if he or she is not the target audience, e.g. "while you and I may take this for granted ..." and "the disabled are exactly the same as you and me ..."

The video is presumably made to be shared amongst a wider audience than the target market. And I guess that for a disabled person it would be a huge psychological win to have able-bodied people looking with envy rather than sympathy at their means of locomotion.

I wonder if it's just for disabled people. It's essentially a sitting Segway. There are certain jobs for which the added height of a Segway is key; crowd control being one. However, one of the biggest issues with Segway are accidents. This would all but eliminate them based on the user being seated.

If you lived in a warm climate and work was 10km or less away with bike lanes........this would appear to be an interesting choice? Or worked on a large warehouse floor where you constantly moved between areas etc.

Re: Ogo, a new take on personal transportation

#180

Post by cushychicken »

triangleman wrote: post #175
cushychicken wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, you completely missed the point of what OP was saying in your rush to talk semantics. He was saying that this product showcases a lot of thoughtful development to solve a problem that a non-trivial number of people have that can't really be solved through marketing shortcuts. And I think we both know exactly the sort of marketing shortcuts he/she is talking about - the apptification of everything, the hype endem…

I didn't miss the point. Of course I agree that it's wonderful to see a product that solves an actual problem. My point was that even in the case of a clearly useful and "marketable" product, it is not at all clear that it will ultimately be successful and change people's lives. The Segway itself is a great example of this: The product works, it does what it claims it will, but nobody owns one. Society is no better o…

> I didn't miss the point.

I'm not so sure you didn't. You keep bringing the conversation back to "hacking", and I'm really unclear as to why. Are you trying to equate hacking to product design? Because neither Apple nor Segway were hacking anything - they both saw a consumer experience they wanted to deliver, and then designed a product that was supposed to deliver it. Both companies took a focused, highly planned approach to delivering their respective experiences. That's just about as antithetical to the "try this and see what happens" hacker mentality as it's possible to get. The only real difference between your examples was the size of their respective markets. (I say that because the few people that buy Segways tend to be outspoken about loving them. Or maybe that's just Woz.)

Now, if the question you were trying to bring up in the first place was "Do we have any indication that the product designed here actually has some appeal to its target market?", I would find your statement a little more credible.

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