Motorized skateboard goes wireless

(Credit: Ratheads)

Now this is the kind of application that makes Bluetooth worthwhile.

We've observed the trend toward motorized skateboards with a combination of curiosity and dread, envisioning massive injuries caused by jet-fueled skater boys--especially those who get tangled in the wires connecting their remotes to the boards. But "GroundSurf" is a new three-wheeled model that's controlled by a "touchsreen Bluetooth mobile phone device" or, if you're really adventurous, by sensor pads embedded directly onto the board. ("You lean forward to accelerate, backward to slow down or brake," its Web page says.) The latter option sounds kind of like a makeshift Segway, which isn't exactly comforting.

Either way we'll find out if its Paris-based inventors launch the motorized board next spring as promised. But at the retail price range of $1,770 to $2,040 quoted by Gizmodo, we won't expect enough of them to create a motorized skateboard version of Critical Mass anytime soon. No matter what, however, they won't have nearly the date-repellant factor as the dorksome "iShoes."