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Starship Troopers: Exoskeletons and Translators
naoursla writes: "Remember the DARPA research solicitation for proposals on Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation? Here is a group that is making progress on it. Right now they have a pair of legs powered by a chain saw engine. Science News has an
article about the researchers this week." And cmholm writes: "Fleshing out this earlier Slashdot story on wearable translators for the military is an article from AFCEA's June Signal magazine. Using a ViA II PC wearable running ViA's Language Translator software, the system can translate between spoken English and Korean, Thai, Chinese, Arabic, Albanian, Spanish, and other major European languages." So between the two, you can either talk to the aliens, or throw them out the airlock.
No doubt that it is the reason that it won't translate. But it ought to be able to translate it. Any program designed to deal with human language should be able to cope with the small inaccuracies that go along with it. An extra 'l' ought not to be able to throw the program for a loop. You and I understood what was meant, so why can't a computer?
EVERYONE will hear them coming for miles. A soldier's lifeblood is stealth, a great idea not quite ready for primetime.
So... how far <i>is</> a click?
The frozen ham. Haven't you ever seen those movies where two enemy soldiers become lost or abandoned or marooned and have to rely on each other to get through numerous inexplicable disasters? Ham is food, and should sustain the two soldiers throughout all their wacky hijinx.
Translated English -> German -> French -> English
Start: All your base are belong to us.
Result: Your whole lower part being to belong us.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
--
Not Asimov, but the great Heinlein.
Waldoes were developed by a guy called Waldo to help him, since he had a muscle wasting disease. So the orginal application *was* to assist the disabled. Info here
Although IANAL, I work in IP, and I am surprised that someone could register Waldo as I would have thought that RAH's estate owned it. Still, weirder things have happened...
- These are small, *those* are _far away_
Enemy Soldier: ...b4k4.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Not to mention the munitions that say:
"I am an explosive. I will go off in 10...9..."
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
> And when things get really ugly, it takes over, walks straight home, and I'm in bed before I even know it.
Yeah, built-in blood alcohol level sensor.
And when Mark II comes out, the exo will just leave the frail human at home and go out drinking by itself.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You have been watching dark angel, haven't you? if so, credit where it's due. If not, well, you just described what happens to one of the main charecters who is in a wheelchair.
Slackware: old school feel, new school gear.
Nope, in dark angel, the main charecter is a super soldier, and doesn't need a suit. There are the guys who put a little spider thing in the back of their neck, and feel no pain, and get adrenalized strength, but that's not quite super strength--no tank tossing, in other words.
What you are thinking of is the male lead, Logan, who has been in a wheelchair most of the season--he now has a pair of exoskeleton legs. All that, AND engaged to Jessica Alba. How can you not want to be that man!
Slackware: old school feel, new school gear.
Zoidberg: Young lady, I am an expert on humans! Now, open your mouth and say "wubba wubba wubba."
Fry: Wubba, wubba, wubba
Zoidberg: What?! My mother was a SAINT! GET OUT!!
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Hey there dirty hippie. If you want to criticize the military, do it right and check your facts. Air Force, not Marines. As for the history, govt, and politics, you left out religion(s), culture, race relations, etc. Finally, whether the military gets involved is a political issue, and the individual soldiers don't get a say.
itachi
Think of the virus that could introduced to these systems. As mentioned to some of the posts.
...." Assume a minefield ahead.
Ballet virus - Watch an entire battalion do swan lake. Or better yet the nutcracker (pun intended - sorry)
Yoga virus
Chorus Line Virus - Watch as the line is done by a couple of hundred troops.
Musical Virus - Name your favorite musical here. Sound of Music or better yet Wizard of OZ. "Off to see the wizard the
Jazzercise Virus
Paper Clip Help Virus - "what would you like to do?" Move left, fire gun, jump. "let me search on move left, there are several ways to do this, please pick one of the foll...."
Sorry, could not resist.
The blue screen of death takes on a whole new meaning
Read Chomky's 'The New Military Humanism', instead. Prolly a lot more relevant stuff in there.... ;)
- undoware.ca
"Back away from that keg, you BITCH!"
It looked worse the way the languages were ordered in the original article... perhaps the best way to go would have been to replace "...Spanish, and other..." with just "...and...", but alas, my morning hit of crank hadn't kicked in yet.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Will it do Klingon? Those bastards at that last convention seemed to be laughing pretty hard about something or other they said to me in Klingon, and I'm not sure if it was "He has a tall leanness." or something else...I just can't keep up with these professionals.
Space Marines have used exo-skeleton armour for millennia to eradicate the enemies of Mankind and burn the heretics!
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Does the translator fit in my ear and feed the information directly to my brain?
You got to be kidding me.
For christ's sake they got a naval ship stranded in the ocean and you want to wear this when "possible" hand-to-hand combat insues...
Can anyone spell "AWOL"
That is your ass, and this over here is your elbow, and NO they ARE NOT the same thing.
Well, of course we would like to see this technology used for peaceful purposes. In fact, this has already happened. Rest easy, knowing that Steven Hawking has been on the case for some time now. :-)
Hawking
~Religion is O.K., as long as it gets you laid.
Right now they have a pair of legs powered by a chain saw engine.
Woah! Bet that's handy when you sneak up to some enemy snipers:
Soldier: Tuktuktuktuktuktuk... ARGH!
--- The light at the end of the tunnel is probably a burning truck.
They are already running into too many setbacks. They are using Windows XP to run their systems. The test subject lifted his leg and had to call Microsoft for a new activation key...
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
I suspect they'd use a noise-cancelling microphone... they work rather well, and really help with voice recognition software's accuracy.
but, IMHO, why don't they take SOME of the money and give the marines a crash course in, say, albanian? When i go on vacation it usually takes me only a few days to be able to communicate on a simple basis with the "civilians". Enough to tell "I'm a suicidal terrorists" from "I give up!". Would it really be harder to learn another language than builiding a milliondollar superduper Translator that frightens the hell out of everyone? Lispy
Hey, this is abot war. These guys are soldiers. They carry out orders. There is no use in letting them decide between good and bad. But when these translators work at all, maybe it is in fact a good thing after all. When people talk rather than just shoot each other i can always appreciate it. Lispy
Which is *also* an amazingly good translation! Cuts the crap, straight to the point: this is about high-tech ways of executing the local rabble.
"They weren't killed in the War. They were killed in the Peace Process."
Ken McLeod, The Star Fraction - also a good source for US/UN teletroopers.
N.B. there doesn't seem to be a Chinese word for civillian...
Maybe there's a Chinese word for civilian (sp.)?
Shouldn't system developers prioritise languages from potential future war (or "peace-keeping") zones? Plenty of locals speak Albanian in Kosovo and Macedonia, as well as Albania proper...
On a positive note, clearly of interest would be a Beowulf cluster of exoskeletons, which could be used for formation dancing and even synchronised swimming and minefield clearance.
I think the beowulf cluster of exoskeletons would end up pouring hot grits down their pants, chanting something about Natalie Portman...
Product warranty will be void if any labels or top cover is removed.
sigfault
I always knew reading comic books would get me somewhere.
Who wants to bet it's Cheney and his bad heart that is now the #1 spporter of this program. Go Tony Stark!!!
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
LOL... simple! Who's gonna decide which one is the correct spelling???
____
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
English and Korean, Thai, Chinese, Arabic, Albanian, Spanish, and other major European languages.
:-))
That's interesting. I didn't realize Korean, Thai, Chinese and Arabic were European languages. Or that Albanian was a major European language.
"Don't run. We are your friends"
POW! POW!
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"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
Supposedly, Archimedes of Syracuse designed machines to ward off Roman invaders based on levers and pulleys, some of the most basic machines that exist. It isn't so much that these are "military technology", but that they are technology that can be put to, among other things, military uses.
Similarly, any implement you can grab, from a phone receiver to a frozen ham, can be used as a lethal weapon.
So even if its initial purpose is military, the results of such research are likely to be useful for far more. "Seek and destroy" becomes "search and rescue", and those heavy bombers become your commercial airliners. Same tech, different app.
Encryption. One of the earlier known forms of encryption, the so-called Caesar cipher, was used to transfer information to generals in the field. Encryption has been studied, and used, by the military ever since. However, at the same time, you can use SSL or SSH or whatever to securely send your CC numbers or email.
Computers. The first examples of modern computers (electronic, not Babbage's) were a result of military research. Bletchley Park developed what is arguably the first modern computer to break encryption, and ENIAC was built to compute ballistics tables for artillery. Yet, your post to Slashdot uses computer technology peacefully.
The Space Program. The V1 and V2 rockets designed by the Nazis to hurl high explosives at London were a terror weapon during WWII. However, the same technology that enabled that (as well as the ICBM's to follow) also created the space program, which has even been used recently for tourism (which is a peaceful enterprise).
GPS. Among other things that have been boosted into orbit, the GPS constellation was initially a military venture. Nowadays, you can get a GPS receiver for your Palm.
The Internet. Or shall I say ARPA Net? The protocols behind the Internet were developed by and for DARPA. It just turns out that the rest of the world had something else to use them for.
At the risk of running late for work, I'll stop here. But in closing: technology research is something you should be applauding, regardless. Technology does not exist in a vacuum; you cannot develop it for one application (say, military) without finding benefits elsewhere (say, civilian).
The army is using nanotechnology to make a new generation of combat uniforms. This isn't quite the same thing as what the article is talking about, but it is fairly similar (and interesting).
You're not allowed to rent here anymore!
Great! Now the first time we see storm troopers in real life, they'll be under Kofi Anan's control, not Darth Vaders! The UN's official color is white, right? :)
but five seconds is a little unsettling for translation.
Yeah I can see future news stories, 'A new species of aliens have been wiped out because their greeting, which is pronounced "Schlalaxk", translates roughly to:
"Hello, please acknowledge my greeting within four seconds or my sense of shame will force me to kill you."'
Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
Brain: "I would tell you Pinky but this 120 char limi
And BTW, this is another Heinlein idea, although he never saw it being used by the military.
More likely than not, the Marines entrusted to use said technology would be trained to use a few scripted sentences until lethal force has been determined to be unnecessary.
:)
By the way:
If it's a US Marine and he's decided to shoot you, running only ensures that you die tired.
Semper Fi.
I've always wanted to be a borg!
hah! That was better than my previous comment:)
We are talking about Starship Troopers here, now any of the Alien movies. Geeze, some people.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
The robo-suit Sigourney Weaver uses in Aliens looks like it could be the future of this technology.
I use phrases like "darn good" and "rootin' tootin'", but only when there's a darn good, rootin tootin' reason!
But seriously, I was surprised that they actually translate the speech to text, then run it through a translator, and then translate text back to audio. While that's certainly the best approach for getting something out the door quickly, it seems it would be better to take the three technologies and merge them into something that performs the translation from the original speech without turning it into text first. That would surely chop a little off the translation time, don't you think?
GreyPoopon
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GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
I don't know about you, but I'm amused by the 5 second delay in translation offered by the wearable. It would be like living in one of those poorly dubbed movies ;)
I would rather have a president who would prefer to run the country than prove himself to his friends. This technology could be put to much better purposes, most of which I'm sure won't be pursued. However, some good can be said of equipping the military with more toys. In this time of peace (well, compared to certain times in the past), the military is being used in a more civilian-oriented manner. I'm with Jules Verne, let's just melt down our cannons and build giant airships (or exoskeletons, if you swing that way) :^).
Why are they pumping all the money into military research? Because Bush wants to win a war! "Yay, I can fight for truth, justice, and the American way, just like Superman, and it's not so bad, we can adapt the technology afterwards to civilian applic... apple... uses. Sure, it will impress daddy, but take my word for it, that's just a secondary concern. *blank smile*"
beowulf cluster legs powered by chainsaw motors, damn, is that the key to high powered computing?
http://www.tashian.com/multibabel/: Lost In Translation.
this website takes a simple phrase, and runs it through bable fish a few times, back and fourth from english to another language and back, the end product... something totlaly lost in translation...
Original: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood
Bableized: How much wood would know a cramp of marmot of America, if marmot of the wood of America that could play
This phrase dates back to at least Roman days, and is as accurate today as it ever was. A little critical thinking should show anyone why the phrase has remained true.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Just as the kids growing up with Centurions in the 80's become scientists, we get this...
Ooo-wee-ooo...
- colin
Soldier #1: ph33r m1 l337 5k1llz!
Soldier #2: Damnit... they forgot haxor!
- colin
Of course most everybody would prefer the machine gun. But the ham will do in a pinch.
one word: beowulf cluster
you would be amazed how witty i can be for how stupid tired I am. sleep is for ninnies.
kinda like you eh? that 'no particular use' part seems to have a familiar ring to it...
not to get snippy, but "civillian" only has one L in it- perhaps the reason it won't translate?
true dat, however German seems to be spoken in places with a history of political distress... I don't mean to knock on Portuguese speaking countries, they're just not hot-spots of international importance. We'll just get rid of the Albanian instead for the portuguese, if it makes you happy...hehe
That only makes me want to watch RoboCop for the first time in ten years.
come on, you haven't seen either of the terminator movies?
Simple! You can either have a button to toggle into or out of Ballet mode or Yoga mode, etc. Better idea! How about a voice activated system, that responds to all of the above-mentioned languages! I dont think anyone speaking Albanian would ever find out he could bend soldiers into pretzels with a few magic words!
Mechanical legs powered by a chain-saw engine? Come on, lets nip this thing in the bud right now and blow up the Cyberdyne building before the naked robot goes chasing after Sarah Connor with an Uzi.
Very Kewl
<sig> I wish I had a </sig>
Pants powered by a chainsaw engine. Now, where are Walace and Gromit?
Carpman the Great - Guild of the Void Pointer Ham Radio Opr: KD5HME | Keeper of the arcane derefrence Guild of the Voi
They have been in the past.
Angola was the center of a nasty civil war that not only involved South Africa, but an entire Cuban Army Regiment for years. US and Soviet "Advisors" were also there for the festivities.
Parts of Timor, the island in Indonesia where the UN went into last year, speak Portuguese.
The South China Sea and Africa will continue to be hot spots of international importance....and they speak Portuguese there.
Tanks are powered by gas turbines or large diesel motors...not much stealth there.
Stealth has it's place when you are scouting or under armored. When you are assaulting stealth takes a back seat.
I'd suspect that exoskeletons powered with chainsaw motors aren't going to be used for stealthy recon.
That said, when these things (if ever) go into service, there will be a fuel cell or quiet ceramic motor to power them.
...but this guy sure ain't no Ripley.
Does that mean that script kiddies will be trying to hack into them over the internet?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I read a lot of Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein all around the same time so I'm sure I'm remembering wrong, but it does seem as though 30 or 40 years of common use of "Waldo" or "Waldoes" to refer to these things would amount to the copyright or trademark equivalent of "prior art".
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Sarge: "What in God's name are you men DOING!?!?"
...And so on.
Platoon: "We're yanking on our pull cords, SIR!"
Sarge: "I see that. Stop that sick shit, or you'll be scrubbing toilets with a toothbrush!!"
Platoon: "We're just trying to start our pants, SIR!"
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Let alone a heavily armed Marine in an exoskeleton...
You mean like this?
http://www.theonion.com/onion3123/hawkingexo.html
-Chris
Check out the three and four "legged" robot section:
Biomemetic Walking Machines
The three legged robot uses simple solenoids to achieve directional and rotational control (talk about a cheap actuator), while the four legged "bug" uses a simple mechanical system and open loop design (ie, you could build one of these devices from Lego with zero sensors, and it would work) - makes me want to break out the Mindstorms set...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
And if not, how can the software/hardware be modified to make it applicable to amputees and/or paralyzed people?
The pair of legs powered by a chainsaw engine is more of a walking wheelbarrow than an exoskeleton. More pics here.
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Right now they have a pair of legs powered by a chain saw engine.
Is that it? They should have spoken to Stephen Hawking first, his exoskeleton is fully functional.
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Moderator's essentials
I'm too busy to read....
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Moderator's essentials
Yup, as Heatseeker151 pointed out, I can't spell properly. I've checked it though - substitute the word "civillian" in the result for "common people". Apologies for my mistake.
and other _major_ European languages. WTF? Albanian is spoken by like a million people. It's one of, if not, the poorest country in Europe. Sorry but that doesn't count as major. IMNSHO the major ones are English, German, French, and Spanish in no particular order. Also, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Thai does not count as European languages.
The Science News article credits Heinlein with exoskeletons, in Starship Troopers. I was surprised they didn't mention Waldos, essentially a networked version of the same thing, which he is better known for.
ourpla.net is your planet
Am I the only one who thought of Junkyard Wars after reading about a contraption powered by a chainsaw engine? This sounds like a good challenge for the next season...
The Techno-Trousers were 'Ex-NASA' - so there's prior art but it doesn't belong to Wallace.
The porridge cannon on the other hand...
Only in a humane *society*.
In many societies throughout history, the chosen response to a wounded soldier would be the exoskeleton telling other soldiers "this unit is wounded, leave it!" or perhaps giving the wearer a lethal injection as soon as he becomes incapacitated. Not solely for mercy, probably just to keep him from being captured.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
Why does Michael seem to think a clunky translator built by humans could ever understand an alien?!
* we don't have ANY alien vocabulary to build on
* Unlike with humans, we can't base understanding on some basic thing that aliens are certain to understand the same way we do. SETI are off their rockers. It's true that their mathematical symbols are the best chance, but when they were showed to a roomful of scientists with specialties in that area, not one of the poor bastards could read it.
* Finally, alien languages will not only have different sounds (if they're even verbal - consider aliens that communicate by scent, telepathically, or by gesture), but they are also likely to have a completely different grammar, with verb tenses and complexities completely new to us.
To sum up, no earthling translator built now has a hope in hell of figuring out what an alien is saying. I think Michael was just being weirdo. However, it might be possible, AFTER we meet some aliens, to design a translator. If, that is, our initial inability to communicate does not put us immediately at war.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
How Exoskeletons Will Work
I note that this translator technology is being tested for military use, and that the exoskeleton research is being funded by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). While I'm sure that all of these technologies will have civilian applications, I can't help but wonder how much better off we would be if we took the money we use for researching military technology and devoted it to peaceful purposes. Maybe I'm a little bit of an idealist, but it saddens to me to think of how many of the best and brightest minds in science and engineering are devoted to studying better ways for us to kill one another. There must be a more fruitful way to make use of all that knowledge, dedication, and intellectual prowess.
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"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" -- T. Jefferson
Technology that allows troops on either side of battle to understand the cool/witty one liners of the enemy.
Sarge: "Oh my God they just killed Dave!!!"
Private: "But ya gotta admit... what that guy just said... It was pretty fucking funny!"
Sarge: "Yeah Chuckie, I suppose it was!"
Sarge and Private: *high five*
:)
Your good civillian; I mean you do not have the harm.
What happen?
Some one set us up the bomb!
Finally there will be no jar that man cannot open
Just imagine what would happen if the pants suddenly "detect" that the muscleman test pilot really wants to perform movements suitable for a ballet dancer.
After a few pretty splits and bends, which all 15-year old ballerinas would envy, the pieces of the soldier's bones are collected from the suit with tweezers.
Dr. Farnsworth: This is a universal translator. Unfortunately, it translates into an obscure dead language. HELLO!
Translator: Bonjour!
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Source:
Hello civillian; I mean you no harm. Please could you direct me and my men to the nearest source of fresh water. Please don't be alarmed by our huge pointy knives and lethal semi-automatic weapons.
Result:
Your good civillian; I mean you do not have the harm. Please can your directly I and my person to the fresh water most neighbor origin. Please do not report to the police by ours huge pointy knife and the lethal semi automatic weapon.
N.B. there doesn't seem to be a Chinese word for civillian or pointy.
Heh, so I guess maybe they're going to have fun working the kinks out.
Well, you have to expect that switching between a non-PIE language will cause some significant problems - there are different basic linguistic concepts between English and, say, Japanese. For example, picture the concept "with". Well, in almost all PIE languages, there is just one word. But, that word actually covers two concepts - "with" as in accompaniment, and "with" as in "by use of". In Japanese, it is two words - to and de, if I remember right. In Japanese, there are only two tenses - past, and present/future. However, they have 3 measures of distance instead of our "near/far" formed words (and they're much more regularly formed... we have "near", "here", "this", etc, vs "far", "there", "that" - no order whatsoever). In Japanese, the prefix "ko-" means "near, as in the speaker's location", "so-" means "far, as in the listener's location", and "a-", means "far, as in further than that" (there's also "do-" which makes it a question. There are just different linguistic balance issues that you really have to just take in context, and that even with a human translating, probably won't last a few back-and-forth cycles.
Oh, and just as a side note, about how few exceptions there are in Japanese compared to english... cross those prefixes with the suffixes "-ko" (location), "-re" (pronouns), "-no" (adjectives), "-chira" (direction), "-nna" (manner, kind), and vowel lengthening, there's only one exception in the 24 combinations - "asoko" instead of "ako".
-= rei =-
"This may be presumptuous..." "That's my favorite kind of 'This'."
Having used a voicemail service which relies on voice-recognition for a couple of years now, I've been regularly annoyed at the fact that the slightest background noise (i.e. the sound made by the planet revolving) throws the recognition all to hell. How this new translation system will cope with background noise along the lines of tanks/APCs, choppers, gunfire, screaming locals etc. will a real test of it's useability IMO.
"Any similarity between the hooting of a million eager monkeys and Slashdot is purely coincidental." -THEFLASHMAN
English and Korean, Thai, Chinese, Arabic, Albanian, Spanish, and other major European languages.
...
Wow. I knew the European Community was expanding, but I didn't know yet we'd come that far!
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Living is a way of life
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"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Sure, I can see the benefit to applying this sort of technology to the handicapped, but do reasonably able bodied Americans need yet another way to get lazier? People get in their cars and DRIVE three blocks to the convenience mart, now they won't even have to burn ANY calories... getting in their car, going into the convenience mart, picking up the six-pack and Chee-tos and back home while exerting no more energy that it would to use the shitter.
Well at least they can't patent this one, Wallace and Grommit have prior art.
Picture this: a walking robot exoskeleton, made as light and compact as possible, with computer compensation for weakened limbs or limited range of motion.
For that matter, consider the non-battlefield applications for this kind of technology. Suppose you could climb everest in a powered suit that provided you heat, pressurization, and cut the effort in half?
How about diving and swimming with powered legs?
This is very cool indeed.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Well, we all know this is going to be used to make super powered soldiers that can turn over tanks with their bare hands etc. (incidentally, didn't they have one of these in Dark Angel), but I've got another use for it - the ultimate home exercise machine. Just set it to oppose movement instead of helping, and you've got an all-over workout that you can do while you're doing regular stuff. Assuming you're doing something more than just watching TV all day.
Imagine a heavily armed marine striding up to you, asking you a question, and depending on a machine to translate the response. Would any us who have used babelfish want our lives to depend on this technolgy? Yikes. The only question would be, should I just keep my mouth shut, or should I run like hell?
Jacobsen says he's thinking in the opposite direction--about putting more human nature into the machines. His idea is to build an exoskeleton intelligent enough to take care of the soldier wearing it. If the human trooper is badly wounded, the machine would say to itself, in effect, "Take this guy home."
... that's right ... the world's best power drinker! Woohoo! Homer Simpson would be jealous. I could lift full-size kegs to my mouth to extract the last drops of sweet beer. I could win every bar fight. And when things get really ugly, it takes over, walks straight home, and I'm in bed before I even know it.
Wow, I see another use for these. If the exoskeleton gives me the ability to lift very heavy objects, and it can take me home when I get into trouble, then suddenly I can become
What's your damage, Heather?
How in the hell do you know what the attitude of the average American soldier is? Maybe you've been watching a few too many Vietnam War movies, and haven't been keeping up on current events.
Over the past 10 years or so, the US military has been involved in literally dozens of relief and peacekeeping operations around the world. I know, I was involved one of them, and guess what? Believe it or not, American soldiers were helping people. We didn't kill anyone. We saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives, and we developed close relationships with many of the local people.
As a matter of fact, our battalion had three translators, all of them local, who were invaluable. A reliable automated translator would have been very helpful as an augment to the human translators. It would have helped us save lives and keep good people from being killed by people who happened to be well-armed.
Some people are stupid and uncaring. Some are smart and sensitive to the people around them. Most are somewhere in between. While it's any easy excuse for a joke, your comment is a gross oversimplification.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
With all of these things, we should remember that the great visionaries have forseen the dangers already.In the seminal and prophetic work "The Wrong Trousers" starring Wallace and Gromit, we saw a graphic demonstration of what happens if the security of exoskeleton trousers is suborned by a 'black hat' (or in this case a red glove).
Hope the code for driving these exoskeletons is open source. I want to be able to see what it does !!
I fear that M$ may choose to implement raw sockets (eye sockets, mainly) in Skeleton XP. Crackers will take over my suit, and use it to kick random passers-by and dogs to death. Or alternately, a trapdoor in closed source suits will allow the CIA to orchestrate massed ranks of publicly owned trousers to invade Cuba or something. A new angle on conscription, clearly.....
On a positive note, clearly of interest would be a Beowulf cluster of exoskeletons, which could be used for formation dancing and even synchronised swimming and minefield clearance.
Stephen Hawking has written another book. It's about time as well.