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51% Voted 'Are pretty neat, but not yet compelling enough to buy.' for 'E-book readers ... '

A Scooter With Everything (For Certain Values of Everything)Comments:74

Posted by timothy on Thu May 08, 2008 11:51 AM
from the next-year-these-will-be-everywhere dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The folks over at Thought Lab have produced an extremely high-density mobile computing platform in a scooter and have been kind enough to teach us all how to make our own! The end result was a rolling system capable of long-distance war driving, GPS navigation, Skype calls on the road, serving as an Internet hot spot or a low-power pir8 radio station, as well as recording your favorite TV program so you don't miss Lost because you are lost. If that's not over the top enough, you can actually drive your scooter to, say, the Grand Canyon, plug in your electric guitar and perform live over the Web at a whim!"
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  • Water Proof? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dancindan84 (1056246) on Thursday May 08 2008, @11:54AM (#23338572)

    If that's not over the top enough, you can actually drive your scooter to, say, the Grand Canyon...
    Just hope it doesn't rain on the way there.
  • by Animats (122034) on Thursday May 08 2008, @11:55AM (#23338586) Homepage

    There was some guy who had a bicycle with all sorts of electronics on it about twenty years ago. He had an Internet connection using VHF amateur radio. He kept adding on more stuff, and ended up with a trailer on the bike and pedaling in low gear all the time.

    Today, it's kind of silly. Devices in the iPhone size class can do almost everything, so building all this gear into a vehicle is kind of pointless.

  • The Horror (Score:5, Funny)

    by explosivejared (1186049) <hagan.jaredNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday May 08 2008, @11:59AM (#23338652)
    Here we have the USB Camera pointing out of the front of the scooter where the horn normally would be.

    I suppose this is so you can capture the final expressions of horror from your victims as you crush them under the weight of your super-accessorized, all-powerful scooter from hell.

    In all seriousness, this is a pretty neat build. Convergence to the point of absurdity is always fun.
  • pir8? (Score:5, Funny)

    by randyest (589159) on Thursday May 08 2008, @12:05PM (#23338712) Homepage
    Really, "pir8" -- not "pirate?" Wow, /. is so 1337 (rolleyes).
    • Don't worry, the signal won't get far enough to be "pir8" with that optimally-bad FM broadcast antenna placement. It should be placed on top of the WiFi high-gain antenna when pir8ing. Then it would have a range greater than the radius of the bike and not blow out the WiFi receiver's front end when turned on. (I'm assuming you turn off WiFi when transmitting,since an FM broadcast signal emitted from right there will wipe out any chance of receiving anything else.)
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      No need 2 get so ir8 about it.
  • by wattrlz (1162603) on Thursday May 08 2008, @12:14PM (#23338852)
    To imagine a beowolf cluster of these?
  • before all of that crap is stolen!
  • ..if it starts raining? That screen would get pretty messed up.
    • That's definitely something to worry about. I was shopping for a GPS to use in the car and motorcycle. While car GPS units have dropped to $150 or less, motorcycle GPS units are still $500+. The only other waterproof nav units are the Magellan Crossover or Magellan 2200T (now discontinued). Or you could put it away when it rains, but that's easy to do for a tiny GPS unit.
  • They should have chosen a better vehicle. Perhaps something like this [honda.com] they could have integrated the screen into the console and made it a really sweet ride. Somebody want to gift one to me so I can build it and post the results?
    • Not to mention very distracting while you're riding it!
    • Yeah first thing I thought was how well will it hold up when the bike is dumped.

      Also how distracting and interfering with your field of vision is that big ass screen? Distraction is a lethal thing on 2 wheels.
    • The pansy factor aside, scooters like this are just plain nasty to ride for any distance. Put this into a real motorcycle of at least 750cc or greater and you have something that you can ride all day. I've often wanted to have a direct feed from the GPS or movie camera into a hard drive so I don't lose data or need to worry about changing memory cards. (We use the GPS data to plan rides, it's as important to know how far you are going as well as change of altitude when you are on a bike. Cagers (i.e. peopl
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