-Caveat Lector-
Tuesday, January 9, 2000
>From The Inside,
http://www.inside.com/jcs/Story?article_id=20218&pod_id=8
What Is 'IT'? Book Proposal Heightens Intrigue About Secret Invention
Touted as Bigger Than the Internet or PC
Steve Jobs quoted on accomplished scientist's new device: 'If enough
people see the machine you won't have to convince them to architect
cities around it. It'll just happen.' A venerable press pays $250,000
for a book on project cloaked in unprecedented secrecy. EXCLUSIVE
Got a clue? Post your guess as to what IT is.
by PJ Mark
Tuesday , January 09, 2001 01:43 p.m.
Harvard Business School Press executive editor Hollis Heimbouch has just
paid $250,000 for a book about IT -- but neither the editor nor the
agent, Dan Kois of The Sagalyn Literary Agency, knows what IT is.
All they do know: IT, also code-named Ginger, is an invention developed
by 49-year-old scientist Dean Kamen, and the subject of a planned book
by journalist Steve Kemper. According to Kemper's proposal, IT will
change the world, and is so extraordinary that it has drawn the
attention of technology visionaries Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs and the
investment dollars of pre-eminent Silicon Valley venture capitalist John
Doerr, among others.
Kemper -- who has been published in Smithsonian, National Geographic and
Outside among others -- has had exclusive access to Kamen and the
engineers at his New Hampshire-based research and development company,
DEKA, for the past year and a half. He tags the proposed book as Soul of
the New Machine meets The New New Thing and won over his agent and
publisher with e-mails describing the project in carefully couched
language. He also included an amusing narrative of a meeting between
Bezos, Jobs, Doerr and Kamen.
The invention itself is as interesting as the inventor. Kamen is 'a true
eccentric, cantankerous and opinionated, a great character,' the
proposal says, with large gaps when it comes to pop culture.
In the proposal, Doerr calls Kamen -- who was just awarded the National
Medal of Technology, the country's highest such award -- a combination
of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. Doerr also says, a touch ominously,
that he had been sure that he wouldn't see the development of anything
in his lifetime as important as the World Wide Web -- until he saw IT.
According to the proposal, another investor, Credit Suisse First Boston,
expects Kamen's invention to make more money in its first year than any
start-up in history, predicting Kamen will be worth more in five years
than Bill Gates. Jobs told Kamen the invention would be as significant
as the PC, the proposal says.
And though there are no specifics in the proposal as to what the
invention is, there are some tantalizing clues. Is IT an energy source?
Some sort of environmentally friendly personal transport device? One
editor who saw the proposal went as far as to speculate -- jokingly
(perhaps) -- that IT was a type of personal hovering craft.
Consider the following items, culled from the proposal:
IT is not a medical invention.
In a private meeting with Bezos, Jobs and Doerr, Kamen assembled two
Gingers -- or ITs -- in 10 minutes, using a screwdriver and hex wrenches
from components that fit into a couple of large duffel bags and some
cardboard boxes.
The invention has a fun element to it, because once a Ginger was turned
on, Bezos started laughing his ''loud, honking laugh.''
There are possibly two Ginger models, named Metro and Pro -- and the
Metro may possibly cost less than $2,000.
Bezos is quoted as saying that IT ''is a product so revolutionary,
you'll have no problem selling it. The question is, are people going to
be allowed to use it?''
Jobs is quoted as saying: ''If enough people see the machine you won't
have to convince them to architect cities around it. It'll just
happen.''
Kemper says the invention will ''sweep over the world and change lives,
cities, and ways of thinking.''
The ''core technology and its implementations'' will, according to
Kamen, ''have a big, broad impact not only on social institutions but
some billion-dollar old-line companies.'' And the invention will
''profoundly affect our environment and the way people live worldwide.
It will be an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive,
sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the
cities.''
IT will be a mass-market consumer product ''likely to run afoul of
existing regulations and or inspire new ones,'' according to Kemper. The
invention will also likely require ''meeting with city planners,
regulators, legislators, large commercial companies and university
presidents about how cities, companies and campuses can be retro-fitted
for Ginger.'' The invention itself is as interesting as the inventor.
Kamen -- ''a true eccentric, cantankerous and opinionated, a great
character,'' according to the proposal -- dropped out of college in his
20s, then invented the first drug infusion pump; he later created the
first portable insulin pump and dialysis machine.
Kamen, an avid aviator who commutes via a helicopter, is also the
founder of FIRST -- For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and
Technology -- a nonprofit organization that encourages young people to
pursue studies and careers in math and science. He's a single man
obsessed with his work and out of touch with popular culture. According
to the proposal, Kamen was seated at a White House dinner next to two
people he'd never heard of: Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty.
Kamen's most recent invention is the iBot, an off-road wheelchair that
can climb stairs, cover sand and gravel and rise to balance on two
wheels. A prototype iBot was showcased by wheelchair-bound journalist
John Hockenberry at last year's TED conference in Monterrey, Calif.; the
demonstration was greeted by wild applause.
IT/Ginger won't be revealed until 2002, the proposal says. No one has
seen the project except Kamen, Kemper, the engineers and the investors
-- which include Doerr, a partner in the venture capital firm of Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers, which helped launch Netscape, Amazon, Juniper
Networks, Excite, and @Home, among others; and Michael Schmertzler,
managing director of Credit Suisse First Boston. Others who have seen
the invention and signed confidentiality agreements include minor
investors Paul Allaire, CEO of Xerox; and Vern Loucks, recently retired
CEO of Baxter. Bezos, Jobs and writer/venture capitalist Randy Komisar
sit on the advisory board. Kamen retains 85 percent of his new company,
according to the proposal.
Why the secrecy? Kamen fears, as he states in a letter to Kemper that is
included in the proposal, that ''huge corporations'' might catch wind of
the invention and ''use their massive resources to erect obstacles
against us or, worse, simply appropriate the technology by assigning
hundreds of engineers to catch up to us, and thousands of employees to
produce it in their plants.''
But such secrecy may have been enough to turn publishers away. ''The
Internet changed the world, too'' said one editor who considered the
project, ''but books about it don't really sell.'' As for the
quarter-million-dollar price tag for North American rights: on the one
hand, it doesn't seem to be a lot for a book about an invention which
has mesmerized such well-known technology moguls. On the other, $250,000
is a lot to pay for a story about a product that hasn't been seen,
defined or named.
''We were well aware of Kamen,'' says book editor Heimbouch, who says
she's been publishing in this technology circle for a long time.'' (The
bestselling The Monk and the Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley
Entrepreneur by Komisar is hers.) So jumping on board for the book
wasn't such a dilemma. Besides, says Heimbouch, Harvard Business School
Press had intended to approach Kamen about doing a book anyway. ''He's
an inventor of great technologies that make people's lives better,'' she
says.
Harvard Business School Press, a division of Harvard Business School
Publishing, is a wholly owned, nonprofit subsidiary of Harvard
University. The Sagalyn Agency retains all but North American rights to
the book.
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
