Dean Kamen and the Ginger Project

A cautionary tale.

In 1999, Dean Kamen took a lot of the money he had earned inventing
things and started a new project called Ginger. He spent several years
working on it in very hush-hush conditions. Eventually, he told a few
people, mostly venture capitalists, about it. Shortly thereafter, a
media frenzy erupted. Everyone wanted to know more, but the few who
knew anything had been sworn to secrecy. Even so, bits and pieces of
information leaked, serving mainly to fan the flames even higher. The
height of absurdity was reached when someone found out that Ginger was a
"human transporter". Leading national news magazines speculated that
Kamen had created a Star Trek-like method of beaming people from one
place to another. Unfortunately, nothing short of science fiction could
have lived up to the previous hype, and so many people were disappointed
when the Ginger project was revealed to be what is now called the
Segway. Today, the hype is gone, and the Segway is quietly remaking the
world.