"First we kill all the lawyers" Shakespeare
A big part of the reason MIT does it is so they can use a smart phone as the controller. This enables crowd-sourced mapping, monitoring air quality, stalking your friends, etc.
Because of all the nay-sayers, I actually went and looked at the MIT site. Guess what. They use Bluetooth to talk to the phone.
Guess what else. To quote them:
Quote:
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The whole generating and power-assisting system can be controlled through the pedals, requiring no switches or dials. Pedal backwards, and the regenerative braking is engaged, helping to recharge the system’s batteries; pedal fast, and you get the extra boost of power. “Everything is controlled by your feet,” Ratti explains.
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Given all that, if I was going to take the other side, I'd say "What happens when 2 bikes are within 6' of each other?" But I have too much respect for the programmers abilities.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" Clarke's Third Law