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Why would they want to buy an exoskeleton manufacturer?

Especially : this one .

Your plot kind sounds like the idea behind the real CYBERDYNE

http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/robotsuithal/

This looks like a cheap copy of the Japanese HAL suit. http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/robotsuithal/ The HAL suit uses nerve control and seems like it would work much better than this unit. Even if you had to train new nerves to control it.

That's about as likely as a company naming itself Cyberdyne and developing semi-autonomous robots...Oh wait!

after 1,000 days a woman who has no functional use of her limbs and is unable to speak can reliably control a cursor on a computer screen using only the intended movement of her hand

Substitute "a cursor on a computer screen" with "exoskeleton robotic suit" and you are way beyond "pretty limited use".

These are being mass produced in Japan for health care and other markets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy7ipDAyXtI
http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/robotsuithal/index.html

At SciFoo 2010, Yoshiuki Sankai of Tsukuba University gave a talk with videos of the varied robotic exoskeleton walking-prosthetics available from his company. The film included many examples of people who had not walked for years standing up and walking with these "legs". You could hear the doctors and nurses watching exclaiming their amazement and sometimes crying. Here is a 2006 biography of Sankai already discussing his exoskeletal robot, first demoed in 2005: http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/sankai.html Their company page also seems to have more information in English: http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/index.html

As soon as Professor Sankai and his team finalize the flight control software.

I suppose your definition of 'anything' excludes any task that requires humanlike manipulation of objects two to ten times your muscular capacity for 3 hours or less of nonstop labor? And that's only until you need to switch batteries or recharge.

Incidentally, the FAQ lists battery life for normal activites at 5 hours for the newer batteries.

Well that what about the HAL exoskeleton? That doesn't require the umbilical cord. http://www.cyberdyne.jp/English/robotsuithal/index.html

Some people watch too many sci fi movies. But it is an interesting idea. I see one (major) issue, crime. http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/faq/index.html

This has been around for a few years. Their wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_5's earliest entry is from 2005, as was the earliest event date listed in the company web site http://www.cyberdyne.jp/English/events/index.html.

Not to mention it will make you look like TRON:
http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/robotsuithal/index.html

What's not to like?

Terminator? Why, Cyberdyne have one of these too, called HAL.

Yes just a small robotics company, nothing to be alarmed about...

http://www.cyberdyne.jp/English/

One of the links in the article leads to a page about a company called Cyberdyne creating a robotic exoskeleton named HAL... http://www.cyberdyne.jp/English/robotsuithal/index.html

and it's from Cyberdyne

actually, as already mentioned the thing is sponsored by a division of the Japanese government, I doubt it's a hoax. Also, the other pictures are of HAL-3, the old model. The new model, HAL-5, does extend the exoskeleton to the ground: http://www.cyberdyne.jp/Image/system_conf_2005.jpg

If you look closely at the second picture that you linekd to, http://www.cyberdyne.jp/Image/sakurai_double.JPG - you can see two things.

A) The demo was held at the World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. All the robots that were demoed there were functional to various degrees (some are commercially available, some are lab prototypes, but they all were functional - no funky mockups). I know this because I was there (http://erinandterencetravels.blogspot.com/2005/09 /back-in-tokyo.html) and I recognize exactly where in the EXPO that would be demoed at. That was demoed at the Robot Station, in the kid's zone.

B) The sticker on the Endoskeleton's thigh is for NEDO - New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (http://www.nedo.go.jp/english/). This is Japan's largest public R&D management organization. They are the equivalent of the NSF (http://www.nsf.gov/) in the US of A. Hardly the guys to sponsor amateur hacks.

Just check out their website: http://www.cyberdyne.jp/ENG/. Looks like an amateur hack...
The photos indicate the all important GLOWING RING JOINTS on the exoskeleton, no doubt the first feature to be implemented. If you look at the corporate info, the company was founded in June of 2004, and has a capital of 10M JPY.. which looks big at first sight, until you consider it's just a little under 90k USD. Looks to me as if they're pulling our leg, especially considering how little real info there is here. I won't even get in to the no doubt intentionally comedic naming of the company and its "product". Also check out this pic: http://www.cyberdyne.jp/Image/sakurai_double.JPG, yeah.. that exoskeleton is definitely necessary to lift a 90 lb. Japanese girl..

Just check out their website: http://www.cyberdyne.jp/ENG/. Looks like an amateur hack...
The photos indicate the all important GLOWING RING JOINTS on the exoskeleton, no doubt the first feature to be implemented. If you look at the corporate info, the company was founded in June of 2004, and has a capital of 10M JPY.. which looks big at first sight, until you consider it's just a little under 90k USD. Looks to me as if they're pulling our leg, especially considering how little real info there is here. I won't even get in to the no doubt intentionally comedic naming of the company and its "product". Also check out this pic: http://www.cyberdyne.jp/Image/sakurai_double.JPG, yeah.. that exoskeleton is definitely necessary to lift a 90 lb. Japanese girl..

Cyberdyne Japan will produce the Robot Suit HAL

And here are the games