iBOT’s End Puts Power Wheelchair’s Users in Tough Spot
From: Hear & Now - 12/26/2011

Before there was the Segway, inventor Dean Kamen introduced the iBOT, a
revolutionary standing wheelchair that can climb stairs and lifts users up to
standing height. 

The iBOT allowed people who were paralyzed to go places they couldn’t before
and do something most of us take for granted–look people in the eye. 

But Johnson and Johnson stopped producing the chair in 2009 due to cost - the
company only managed to sell a few hundred a year, and Medicare only paid
about $5,000 for the chair, which retails for about $25,000. 

Now iBOT users are facing a 2013 deadline, when the company will no longer
offer routine maintenance of the chairs in circulation. 

Read the entire article at:
http://hereandnow.wbur.org:80/2011/12/26/ibot-johnson-phase

Links:
iBOT Robotic Wheelchair Commercial video (1:02)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7otewMk9pc

iBOT Discontinued -- Unfortunate for the Disabled but Perhaps a Budding Robotics Opportunity?
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/02/11/ibot-discontinued-unfortunate-disabled-perhaps-budding-robotics-opportunity

Independence Technology
http://www.ibotnow.com

Submitted by Jerry Weisman