Mythbusters has one, I'd love to get a job driving one, you could probably thread a needle with em once you're proficient.
Probably so - they are interesting to watch in operation, based on the videos I've seen...
I'm not sure about your statement of 'that's how it's supposed to work' there's nothing in the constitution that allows all government documents to be property of the people, or that anything owned by the government is public property, by that logic it would be legal for any citizen to go up to an army barracks and demand to be allowed to drive a tank and they'd just have to had you the keys =) But that's a totally separate subjects!
All I meant is that typically, at least for government research - the results of the research become (or should become) taxpayer "property" - freely available by all citizens to view and use, since our tax dollars supported its funding. I would think that certain procurments of IP would fall under that kind of umbrella as well, but I guess they don't - I just think they should. I don't think I, as a citizen, should have to pay twice to gain access to the ability to use such property that I've already technically paid for once via taxes.
Then again, there's the argument that I should only get the amount of "access" I paid for - which would be inconsequentially small as a single taxpayer, of course. Then again, do we only gain such a small amount of fire or police protection...? There's argument about that, too - of course.
I don't think as a taxpayer I am saying we should be able to run willy-nilly doing whatever with "equipment" bought with our dollars; I do think we should have the right to know what we have bought (up to and including so-called "black funded" projects - but that's another debate) - but the actual use of such would, for the majority of situations - be restricted.
For IP though - whether developed via taxpayer funding, or acquired via such funding - the taxpayer shouldn't have to purchase it twice, which seems the situation here (unless Airtrax and the others who purchased it aren't US companies? In that case, charging them for access is fair).
With that said - $2500.00 as a payment, on the whole - for such a technology - is fairly cheap, if you ask me (even though I think ideally it should be "free"). Something I find interesting is that while they mention other companies as having bought the technology, they only named Airtrax; I've never seen another company who has sold such products based on the technology (though I do know of a hobby robotics company that sells such wheels as custom parts). Who were the others? Were none of them able to turn a profit from their IP purchase? Is Airtrax the only manufacturer of such machines left - or is the US Government the only purchaser of their machines?
Lots of questions - not expecting an answer for any of them...