It seems there could be 100s of possible applications for a device like this. Why arent we coming up with this kind of stuff if we are freaking innovative. But i guess printing dollars is easier than making these machines. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bI06lujiD7E&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bI06lujiD7E&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Tell you what. You bankroll my research for this + pay any student loans/debt of mine, and I'll go make one of these. My engineering degree pays the bills, but not if I got a job building these things. Navigating venture capitalist sharks, crooked professors, and other thieving engineers is not a walk in the park. Securing funding comes with its own issues, and taking other people's money to do things comes with the conditions of the guy providing the money. It's not that American engineers can't do this. It's just that it makes zero financial sense at all to do this on an individual level. We all enter engineering school with hopes to change the world, but that's the drawback. We don't learn about business until it's too late, and by then the stress of the profession takes its toll on us. This is why I'm a trader[1] and not at Intel. [1] Well, I only struck out on my own recently. But I've been in the industry for some time.
That's what people said about space travel and now we're finding out that the moon has water on it and there are asteroids with gold in them I think humanity just needs to grow some balls and start being innovative, the problem is we have too many people nowadays who are being tricked by the education system and religion into thinking they can't do anything worthwhile with their lives.
It's not a lead we couldn't overtake. Robotics would need to be incentivized somehow. But Twitter and Facebook get millions while control systems guys make like 60k starting out, and maybe 100k with a graduate degree. Robotics are incentivized in our country though, but mostly for defense.
There isn't a great need to balance on a ball. It's necessity that drives inovation. Segway was a similar concept applied to personal transportation that never really caught on.
For one thing, Americans don't have the sole claim on innovation. There are plenty of smart, creative people all over the world. If we need to get good at ball-balancing robots, I'm sure we will.
The japanese are using their time to innovate, while we waste our time playing bejeweled blitz and farmville on facebook. Or we are busy tweeting about how we are eatting a sandwich, or watching a movie. And lets not forget the 13 million people who dedicate 8-12 hours per day on World of Warcraft. Its like the only way to make alot of money in america anymore is to invent something that totally wastes your time.
We are too busy blaming Mexicans for sneaking into the country and stealing our toilet cleaning and fruit picking jobs. We should be focusing our energy on developing more skilled jobs rather than trying to protect unskilled labor.
Gee whiz Peil. America innovates a-plenty. Medical, Military, Aeronautics, Computer sciences, Material sciences, financial... ... aw heck. In just about every field. You get bedazzled over a ball balancing robot and go all "down on America." You need to read around more to see just what America has been up to. Your jaw will drop.