The original note, as written at the time
There is no better mode of mobility than walking. Instead of building bigger and bigger machines to get us around, we should be developing human scale devices to aid us in our walking. These could include: better shoes for a more comfortable step; skeletal bracing to help our spring; field based audio-visual devices to ease how we communicate and are entertained while on the move; heat regulation underclothing to manage the HVAC.
Ongoing development
There is no better mode of mobility than walking. Instead of building bigger and bigger machines to get us around, we should develop human-scale devices that help us walk.
The list you give is the right list, and it is the right list because none of it is a vehicle. Better shoes for a more comfortable step. Skeletal bracing to help the spring. Field-based audio-visual devices for communication and entertainment on the move. Heat-regulation underclothing to manage the body’s own climate.
Each of those removes a reason not to walk, and reasons not to walk are the actual barrier. Nobody chooses a car because walking is unpleasant in principle; they choose it because the pavement is hot, the bag is heavy, the knee hurts, the call cannot be taken, and the destination is thirty-five minutes away.
A shoe that returns energy, a brace that takes load off a joint, a layer that keeps the skin dry — those extend the walking range of an ordinary person by a kilometre or two, and two kilometres is the difference between a neighbourhood and a drive.
The entertainment point is underrated and slightly uncomfortable. Walking is boring in a way that a car is not, because the car has a radio. A device that lets a person listen, talk, or be somewhere else while their legs work is not a distraction from walking; it is what makes a forty-minute walk competitive with a ten-minute drive.
The measure of success is not fitness. It is whether the machine stayed at home.
Build for the person, not the passenger.