What’s the mysterious "IT" invention? Ask Dean Kamen

Eric Auchard

NEW YORK: "IT," the mysterious, much-hyped invention that a

down-on-its-luck hi-tech world has seized on as a possible revolutionary

breakthrough in the realm of personal transportation, is ready to be unveiled on

Monday. IT, also known by the code-name "Ginger," is said to be some

sort of personal Hovercraft or radical new transportation device, perhaps one

that relies on an emission-free Stirling engine that recycles much of its own

heat.

Accomplished inventor Dean Kamen is set to detail his plans in newspaper and

television interviews early next week, a spokesman said, putting an end to

nearly a year of wild media frenzy and Web-chat speculation over the nature of

what IT is.

The 50-year-old Kamen invented the first portable insulin pump in the 1970s,

then a briefcase-sized dialysis machine and more recently a stair-climbing

wheelchair. He lives and works outside of Manchester, New Hampshire, where his

DEKA Research & Development Corp. employs around 165 employees.

Kamen himself has refused to talk about his plans in public. Instead, he has

used media interviews and frequent hi-tech and scientific conference appearances

to promote his pet philanthropy, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and

Technology (FIRST).

Each year, FIRST sponsors a nationwide robotics-building competition to

encourage teenagers to become scientists and engineers.

The mystery of 'IT' fills void for hi-tech hopefuls

Whether or not IT lives up to its advance billing, Ginger has supplied

high-tech hopefuls in search of the next big thing with cause for optimism

during a year that has bristled with headlines of economic downturn, a tech

spending slump and war.

Some enthusiasts are clearly having fun imagining the possibilities. Others

appear desperate to believe everything they read. Word of IT first leaked out in

January in a report published in the now-defunct online media tip-sheet

Inside.com, which reported on a book proposal presented to Harvard Business

School Press about Kamen's secretive project.

Tech leaders like Apple Computer Co. co-founder Steve Jobs, Amazon.com

founder Jeff Bezos and top venture capitalist John Doerr are said to have been

enthralled by a demonstration of a prototype device and to have invested

millions of dollars. But no one who knows anything is saying, leaving anyone who

does not know to wonder.

"Dean is disillusioned with all the press attention," said Jack

Kamen, the inventor's father, a retired advertising illustrator, who redesigned

the look of the irreverent Mad magazine in the 1950s. "He doesn't like the

analysis of the stuff that gets leaked out," the elder Kamen, who now lives

in Bedford, New Hampshire, told Reuters on Friday.

Web fan sites keep 'IT' speculation alive

Popular fascination with the endless possibilities has inspired a variety of

Web sites devoted to discovering the inventor's secret, as well as spoofing it.

These include sites such as the IT question (http://theITquestion.com) and links

to some of the more than 150 US and foreign patent applications filed by Kamen.

Pictures accompanying a Kamen a Dec. 14, 2000 patent application with the

World Intellectual Property Organization depict a young girl balanced on a

two-wheeled scooter that is described as a, "personal mobility

vehicle".

"I know what IT is," boasts one active chat room, but responses

range all over the map from mentions of flying wheelchairs to fluid dynamics.

"Anyone knows what stock to invest in for Ginger?" asks another

discussion thread. Apple Computer Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Walt Disney Co., or a

variety of hydrogen fuel cell companies that might benefit.

Another such site, Ginger-Chat.com, promises to keep fans of the mystery

contraption apprised of all the latest news, chat-room gossip and background. It

even offers a clock counting down the days, hours and minutes until Kamen is

scheduled to appear on a US breakfast TV show this Monday.

ABC breakfast television anchor Diane Sawyer promised earlier this week to

reveal the invention on her Dec. 3 show. "One week from today, we're going

to reveal right here what IT is," she told viewers last Monday, adding she

had heard IT was something "everyone will have to have" and

"immediately make the people who own it richer than Bill Gates."