The motorized unicycle that is featured in the OK Go video that I showed yesterday is made by Honda and called the UNI-CUB and you can see it put through its paces in the video below.

It seems like will be good for the mobility-impaired in places that require a lot of walking like museums, airports, malls, and large offices. It is unobtrusive, quite compact (510 x 315 x 620 mm), and weighs 25kg, which means that it can be put into the trunk of a car and taken to places where the user is likely to need it. It has a maximum speed of 6 km/h, slightly above normal walking speed, and a range of 6 km. I can see this having a bigger future than the bulkier Segway, since it melds easily into the everyday environment as a chair.

Honda seems to be really getting into robotics, as they have demonstrated with ASIMO.

Maybe that excellent film Robot and Frank is closer to becoming reality than I thought.