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Exoskeletons For Rent In Japan
destinyland writes "Cyberdyne has started renting their exoskeleton body suits in Japan. The mind-controlled wearable machine increases strength and endurance, and rents for $2,300 a month. (Sensors on the skin detect traces of nerve signals from the brain, synchronizing the power suit's movements with the user's own limbs.) New video shows the suits in use on the streets of Tokyo, and the concept may be catching on. DARPA now has a program called Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation 'to develop devices and machines that will increase the speed, strength and endurance of soldiers in combat environments.'"
How is this not a joke?
Cyberdyne? HAL? Are we already this deep in the 'asking for it' business?
Keep on knockin'
https://robbiecrash.me
See title. I did not see anything in the video which could not be done by relying solely on your ordinary inner skeleton. Except of looking silly, which judging from western media's coverage of Japanese culture must be Japan's most popular pastime.
But I will give some props to the exoskeletons -- they did not keep that girl from swaying her ass so nicely. Maybe they even enhanced it.
naming the company cyberdyne is just disturbing
Pay apartment rent, cable, internet, car insurance, student loans, and utilities... or live in a cardboard box and be a cyborg...?
I'm in!
The military version might be able to lift 200lb weights, speed box, run, jump and other amazing things.
Nothing a cup of water wont put a stop to.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
From TFA, the exoskeleton from the Japanese is being made to help the disabled and the immobile. The US exoskeleton? It's for the soldier of tomorrow.
Interesting priorities, that tell a lot about each culture.
I wonder what the long term consequences are of wearing one of these things all the time. As it is we're lazy. Now we don't even have to use our own muscles?
Now all we need is Sigourney Weaver and we'll have all the protection we need when the aliens come back!
The title of the original article says that these exoskeletons may soon become like bicycles. I doubt that and I'm sure that most governments will outlaw them. Whoever wears them could pose a serious threat to the people around him/her and why would anyone wear one for show if not for work (like construction) or fighting (which is illegal) ?
Seriously? They named their company after the company in Terminator? I'm not sure if I'm amused or concerned.
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I'd hate to see what one of those things can do (to the user) if the sensors malfunction. Lets hope that the joints are desgined to not have a larger range of motion then the human wearing them.
read my mind at http://the-willows.blogspot.com/
The way I see it, this has a very scary natural progression.
Military use:
At first, it's only used to assist in very special cases. Eventually it's perfected and every infantryman has one! Well, that's great. But one day, some 'genius' general is going to say, "Hey, what if we had the suits continue working even AFTER the soldier has died? That'll scare the bejesus out of the enemy!" And he'll get a medal, and some room full of programmers will work on making the suit controllable remotely, with simple commands that allow to act somewhat autonomously. (Stuff like... "Is the soldier dead? Okay, rush the bad guys and scare them")
It works so well, that soon they don't even take the dead soldiers out of the suits until they start to smell pretty bad, which gives away their position. The suit would dig a grave, drop its soldier in it, and run back to base.
Eventually that autonomy will prove so effective, they start allowing portions of it to activate even if the soldier is still alive. ("Not moving fast enough? Here, I'll help." "Hey, orders said go down this street, not that one. Let me help!" "Why aren't you shooting the small people with things shaped like grenades? Let me take care of that for you.") The soldiers will follow orders MUCH more effectively. And even if the suits walk them into death, well, the suits are more durable, and the enemy is more scared of dead walking soldiers, so... yeah.
Corpse armies will soon become the norm, and instead of enlisted soldiers, we'll just start tossing criminals into the suits. Inevitably the criminals would disobey an order (probably given an impossible order right away) and lose 100% control, and just be slaves to the suit until they got shot in combat.
So now we have robot zombie armies fighting each other with reckless disregard, since nobody's really getting killed anyway.
Wow, I just had an awesome idea for a novel.
Meh. I'm still waiting for the "thirty second bombs".
It speaks heavily about their needs. Japan is very concerned about lack of youth. They are currently regressing in terms of population size (of Japanese; illegal aliens are an issue for them). OTH, America has spent TONS of money on it for moving things. Simply the last investment is via DOD contractors. But, there has been active research into this for several decades. And up until recent times, it was concerned mostly with hazardous waste and/or moving large material.
Culture has NOTHING to do with this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I watched the video of the three people walking the streets with leg exoskeletons.
Argh! It just abounds in wrongness! They are all in black, with white exoskeletons. There should be a red one, a blue one and a yellow one or some such! Don't these people watch Sentai shows?
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
With the decrease in actual exercise performed while wearing one of these suits, soon everyone will be too fucking FAT to fit into them.
And another thing...
"Developing story! Epileptic in HAL suit has seizure on subway...18 reported dead. More at 11!"
These things are in Japan for a reason, they made lesser gundams to keep eyes from looking for the big ones.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
Cyberdyne = the fictional company that built Skynet in the Terminator movies
HAL = the computer in "2001: A Space Odyssey"
You're obviously not a science fiction geek ;-)
And I'm surprised that a real company calls itself Cyberdyne and uses HAL as an acronym for a real product. While I appreciate the humor, most companies want reputable sounding rather than funny names. That way, Japanese Cyberdyne is a big exception.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Personally I can't wait for these to show up in Japanese Porn. There is probably already a wasei-eigo term for exo-skeleton-assisted rape.
As always, the Japanese technology makes our attempts look crude and retarded.
I wonder what will happen when the Germans start producing this kind of technology...
I've posted a few times in this thread in an entirely joking manner, but something I couldn't quite put my finger on has been bothering me about this whole thing. It finally struck me.
I occasionally do a little demonstration to show how the body responds to certain stimuli. You can try it yourself. Stand in a doorway, place the outside of your wrists against the sides of the doorjamb (the door has to be open, idiot), and apply steady, yet heavy pressure outwards with both arms, as if you are trying to do a jumping-jack, but the doorjamb is preventing your arms from going all the way up. Push hard. Hold it, still applying outward pressure, for a count of 60 seconds, then step out of the doorway and just relax, with your arms hanging at your sides. Weird, huh?
Your arms will almost immediately begin raising back into the previous position, outwards, without any intentional effort, almost as if you are in a zero-G environment.
Astronauts experience the exact opposite of this. They do not require much effort to move around, so that when they are suddenly back on Earth, it is very difficult for them to move around. I am not talking about muscle atrophy. That takes much longer to happen. As the previous exercise demonstrates, it takes a mere 60 seconds to condition the body to changes in the environment, yet it takes just as long for it to re-adapt.
Now imagine a soldier in the field. Blastin' away, running hither and yon, jumpin' jack flash, for hours on end, his movements amplified by this crazy borg suit. Suddenly he takes a hit in the powerpack, or it just runs outta juice in the middle of a fire-fight. So what does he do? He takes the fucking thing off, otherwise he is a deadman (or simply laying there like one).
Here is the problem. He is so conditioned to the suit, now it is off, it takes a long time to readjust. He is STILL a sitting duck, blundering around like a 40oz drunk because his muscles/brain are still expecting the suit to be doing most of the work.
This is a bad scenario. He is the Terminator while the battery lasts, and Erkle-the-Wonder-Geek with no body armor when it goes dead.
I think I'd rather hump the 80lb pack around and be able to dump it (and float like a butterfly) when the shit really hit the fan.
Give it a few development/update cycles, and these skeletons will be able to fuse together to form giant beast-shaped shaped composite robots!
Now all we need is for some mad scientists to genetically engineer a giant monster, and drop it in Tokyo... and invent cardboard skyscrapers for them to bump into.
How long before I get spam talking about these things being able to improve my performance in bed ... ? :-)
... they get all excited by films and books and rely on artists to come up with cool cultural memes to follow and become fans of? (like the rest of society)
When I read "...paralyzed from the neck down ... was able to get within 500 yards of the summit... with the help of a HAL exoskeleton worn by his friend " - No wait, Unwow that one
Aren't they making autos bigger because people can't fit in smaller ones? Can you imagine an American family all fitting into a Model T Ford these days?
Why on the earth we put military use before everything else? For fuck's sake, this stuff can be useful to some people for good.
If soldiers don't want to get hurt they can choose to avoid going to war, while old or disabled people have no control on their age or illness.
Arses for rent in San Francisco.
I'd recommend reading "Starship Troopers" by Robert Heinlein, which covers some interesting problems regarding exoskeletons used in combat. The solution of course is to not amplify the soldiers strength unless needed. The suit should simply move with the body in normal situations and only ampify in extreme situations, when the soldier exerts extreme force.
Sure... OK.
It didn't make the quadriplegic walk autonomously again - but it did allow his friend to hike up the mountain for three hours with him on his back.
Have you recently tried piggybacking a grown human for three hours? Up a mountain. In the snow.
Nearly doubling one's lifting strength, is kind of a wow-deal.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
their robots are aimed at aiding the elderly and this exoskeleton would do the same.
If Japan didn't have someone looking over their shoulder perhaps their development of these products would be different? It has got to be kind of convenient to have the US providing support militarily, not that there are no drawbacks because there are some.
then again, after all their monster/giant robot flicks perhaps there is some cultural inhibition to making them come to life.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
How are these things powered? With the amount of work they will need to do batteries just won't last long.
Gosh, they must be from the ministry of silly walks.
IMHO "SARCOS" exoskeleton is the best. Btw "skynet story" :)
That is seriously the coolest thing that I've ever heard of. I mean, mind controlled body suits? That's awesome!
Hello, I would like a suit like that. It kinda reminds me of the power armor in fallout.
Wasn't that a real name for a real apocalypse in the movie Terminator...?
Quick, destroy them, lest we start seeing more walking metal exoskeletons, with the evil red eyes!
yea I've heard of this a while back, cool concept, but yea i think it should be aimed more towards the disabled now a days with everyone...well you know...getting old, rather than using it as a tool for the military, don't they have enough already?
It seems like a rather low tech solution for mere transportation in Japan did they have another earth quake? http://www.theonion.com/content/news/earthquake_sets_japan_back_to_2147
In Google we trust.
That's more about letting a soldier carry around and fire a M2 Browning machine gun.
And besides, you're a fucktard. No one's putting military use before anything else, except maybe for the fact that there's more bucks available for military research.
You just got troll'd!
I remember reading that these things would be offered at the same price this article says they are being rented at. I should have known that thinking Grandpa could afford one of these for less than $3k (once they went in high production) was foolish. Still, here's hoping that they replace all those "Rascals" bumping into the public. Those things just turn you into lumps of meat on wheels, whereas these suits could not only help you get around, but help with therapy.
End of Line.
Ore wa GUNDAM!
Seriously, how do you collect rent from somebody using a cyber-exoskeleton strength-enhancing crazy suit? I, for one, would just beat the snot out of the people trying to reclaim it!
I predict someone will be found beaten to death with a sofa.
"Take that you bitch"- Alien Queen versus exoskeleton fight at end of Aliens.
The girl in the video looks like she is walking awkwardly. At one point she stumbles when stepping off the curb. Her hips move much more then those of the men beside her, and it seems like this might not be a unisex type of device.
I know that makers of high end hiking backpacks have male and female versions because of the different physiology between the sexes. It would seem that exoskeletons would also will have to be customized for a specific body shape and sex.
Why all the negativity, slashdot? Most posts here are some Terminator reference or a "detailed" explanation of why the skeletons / suits won't work (yet they do). I have a feeling all of the fearmonger posts are from Americans, because we seem to be perpetually afraid of advances in technology--especially by those evil Japanese or Chinese! I dream of the day when the whole world rejoices at significant technological advances, not just the country that profits the most... I dream of a day when we humans realize we're not going to survive until we cooperate with eachother. My dreams aren't profitable.
I have Muscular Dystrophy and I can barely use anything but my hands and that's limited in of itself. This only works for those who have good use of limps, I guess? Depends how much pressure it takes to push down/use strength. I wish it could help me. I just don't see me being able to use it.
Oh well. COME ON GENE THERAPY!!!! :)
In other words we are getting so lazy that now walking is just too damn hard to do. Hooray for technology!!
Rapper's have their bling-bling made out of platinum. My necklace is made of rhodium.
Japan's lost in a war, and "has no military force" as its government says(JSDF *officially* isn't a military force), so such devices "that can be used for invasion " are unlikely paid. On the other hand, considering there's a health insurance system, which limits pays from patient to 10-30%, or sometimes even less, mandated for every Japanese citizen, plus growing amount of elderly, healthcare business really pay well. No real reason to try selling those kind of devices to JSDF.
# Just take a look at this.