Segway launches a robot assistant…

Can Segway come back from the dead?

After 2 years of development, Segway is finally ready to rise from the ashes of disaster with their new Segway Advanced Personal Robot.

Known as Loomo, the Robot/vehicle is already shipping to developers, and soon there a consumer version will be ready to ship.

Loomo is a means of transportation, but once the rider steps off the Segway, it turns into a fully functional assistant, following behind its owner, taking pictures, providing surveillance, and carrying groceries.

Sounds promising… but then again, so did the original Segway

Once lauded by Steve Jobs as being “as big a deal as the PC,” many hyped the hover wagon as a disruptor to the transportation industry — a second coming of the transition from horse and buggy to car, if you will.

But, as Jobs also predicted, too many people got hurt while riding the Segway early on, curbing people’s desire to purchase the overpriced machines.

After a few public mishaps, the Segway was banished to park-tour purgatory, forever boxed-in as a tourist cash grab.

The comeuppance of Segway was a PR dumpster fire

Let’s review things with a little timeline:

• 2001: Segway’s inventor, Dean Kamen, unveiled the Segway, predicting he would sell 50k vehicles in the first year.
• 2002: The Segway debuts on Amazon for just south of $5k, leaving the every-man/woman vastly disinterested.
• 2003: Segway recalls all 6k of the scooters on the market due to rider-injuries (even president George W. Bush was caught eating it during a test drive).
• 2004: Kamen is forced to raise $31m in funds and mortgage the Segway factory after squandering his original funds.
• 2009: Segway is acquired by U.K. businessman James Heselden.
• 2010: Heselden dies in a freak Segway accident.

Oyyy, speaking of segues…

With new “heavy lifting” capabilities and apparently enough “wit and personality” to give Wall-E a run for its money, Loomo might finally be just the added dash of pepper the Segway needs to get people hovering.

That said, it’s essentially a Segway with a robot on it, so, take that as you will.

GoPro’s uh-oh: $100m+ short on revenue, out of the drone biz, and potentially up for sale

Yesterday, adventure camera maker GoPro announced their preliminary Q4 results — and the numbers were a hell of a lot less pretty than the scenery in their promo videos.

As a result, GoPro stock plummeted by as much as 33%, the biggest drop the company’s ever seen.

Yikes… how bad was this report?

Well, they missed their projected revenue ($470m) by more than $130m, largely thanks to a decision to slash prices on some of their cameras. So, pretty bad.

The company also dropped the news that they’re killing off their entire drone business, just a few months after introducing Karma — a device beleaguered with controversy since it literally dropped out of the sky back in November of 2016.

To adjust, GoPro will cut its staff from 1,250 to less than 1k employees.

It’s been a wild ride fo’ GoPro

Shortly after going public in 2014, the company’s stock hit a high of $98 per share. Since then, shares have continually declined, bottoming out at just $6 yesterday.

Once valued at over $11B, the company is now worth around $1B, thanks to lackluster camera sales, plus swings-and-misses on new products.

Now, according to CNBC, they’ve hired JP Morgan to help them entertain interested buyers: “If there are opportunities for us to unite with a bigger parent company,” said CEO Nick Woodman, “that is something that we would look at.”

Where will you be when the “Bomb Cyclone” hits? At the store, probably

Step aside, Polar Vortex, the Bomb Cyclone is this year’s coolest winter weather system, and that means one thing: everyone stocked up on pizza rolls and other cold-weather accoutrements for the big blizz’.

Last week, boots shot up 32% in the US’ Northeast (19% across the country), while hat, glove, and scarf sales jumped 65% regionally (44% nationally) — luckily, a lot of stores saw these spikes coming.

Retailers from Ace Hardware to Rite Aid employ “weather intelligence” firms to help them predict weather-based shopping surges, and navigate the fickle waters of supply and demand.

CIA, meet the WIA

AKA, “business weather intelligence agencies” that can predict consumer behavior down to the degree.

For example, Weather Trends International knows that electric blanket purchases increase 24% per degree drop in temperature, while boots, coats, and sweaters jump by 5% per degree.

Some retailers even have their own in-house weather teams

UPS, IBM, and Waffle House, all have their own fully-staffed weather command centers to help them make buying decisions months in advance.

IBM’s team of 160 meteorologists, while UPS’ team of meteorologists work 24 hours a day during the week and stay on call for the weekends.

Then there’s Waffle House, known for staying open through tornadoes and hurricanes, with a tiered weather response system so finely tuned that FEMA refers to “the Waffle House Index” to see where they should send resources during a storm.

Enough is enough: Google is tired of getting their bikes stolen

So much for good karma: you try doing something nice for people and what do they do? They steal your bikes. Or at least, that’s what’s happening to Google.

Yep, the company setting the standard for corporate-perks is paying for it, estimating up to 250 of their 1,100 “Gbikes” (scattered throughout Google to help employees traverse the endless campus) are stolen each week.

The gall of some people

Launched in 2007, Google has gone hard on their bike-friendly initiative: in 2015, they created a $5m grant to develop more bike-forward cities, and turn their home city of Mountain View into a commuter-friendly mecca.

That said, they didn’t expect citizens (unaffiliated with Google) to repeatedly take their Gbikes out for a spin whenever they so well please.

While the $300 cost of each bike is a drop in the bucket to Google, the sheer volume of missing Gbikes is concerning — some winding up in people’s yards, at the bottom of creeks, even on the roof of a local Sports Pub.

But there are some new sheriffs in town

The company has now hired a team of 30 freelancers to scour the community for “hot” bikes. They’re also reportedly testing GPS trackers, and locks that allow Google employees to access bikes exclusively through their phones.

Google wants their bikes back, and they’re willing to send the Dirty 30 to the edge of the… err… Mountain View to find them.

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