It may not revolutionize human transport but it's a wonderful machine.

Dean Kamen's much-hyped invention was unveiled last December, too late for our 2001 awards. Here's the deal: It may not revolutionize human transport, or even your daily commute, but it's a wonderful machine. It seems to read your mind, but really uses tiny forward-backward changes in your body angle to trigger movement, accelerate and stop. Five gyroscopes and two tilt sensors allow the 83-pound scooter to balance itself on a pair of wheels that are independently driven by electric motors. More than 100 commercial Segways are at various stages of testing. The smaller and lighter consumer model, coming next summer, will cost $3,000.

"This is engineering ingenuity pure and simple ... "

When I rode the Segway a few months after watching Dean Kamen deliver a lecture while "pacing" around the room on his gyroscope-controlled machine, I was convinced of two things: first, that it's going to be a lot harder than I thought to come up with a practical reason for anyone to need one of these. Second, who cares? This is engineering ingenuity pure and simple ... it was like learing to ride a bike again, but learning in 2 minutes.

This is a new class of locomotion: fun, easy, science-fiction-y in its intuitive controls. Maybe we'll end up with no-car cities buzzing with Segways and their offspring. Or not. In any case, there's a higher need then practical need: the need for ingenious human invention for its own sake.