Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Tokyo Students Design a New Robotic Muscle Suit

Posted by samzenpus on from the we-can-make-it-better dept.

angry tapir writes "Students at Tokyo's University of Science have developed a new version of their muscle suit, a wearable robotic suit that assists the muscles when carrying out strenuous tasks. The original version of the suit, which has been in production for several years, provides assistance to the arms and back but the new version provides assistance to the back only. That means it is lighter and more compact than the original model."

2 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. A Good Response to an Aging Population by reporter · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    Most Japanese do not subscribe to the American idea that the only way to "fix" an aging population is to open the doors on immigration. So, despite the fact that the percentage of elderly people in the Japanese population continues to steadily increase, Tokyo has restricted immigration and demanded that those who do immigrate must assimilate into Western culture and, specifically, Japanese culture.

    This muscle suit will fit the aging Japanese quite well. As a person progresses beyond 60 years of age, her mobility and strength decline rapidly. This suit will help to compensate for the declination.

    On a side note, observe that Japan has long challenged conventional wisdom in the USA. In addition to proving that massive uncontrolled immigration is not the only answer to an aging population, the Japanese have proven the following.

    1. Class size is not the prime determinant of academic success. Culture is the prime determinant. (The average number of pupils in a typical high-school class in Japan is much larger than the number in California.)

    2. Massive importation of foreign engineers is vital to being competitive in engineering. (Japanese companies, which typically hire only native-born Japanese, hold the majority of patents in LCD displays.)

    3. A military solution can transform a backward, ignorant society into a 1st-world society. (The Japanese military transformed Taiwan into a modern society. Under Japanese colonial rule, attendance in public school up to the 6th grade was mandatory; many Taiwanese eventually obtained postsecondary degrees from elite Japanese universities. The military solution was possible in Iraq; the Americans failed because they refused to enact a military draft supplying the 400,000 troops needed for a long-term military occupation and colonial rule.)

    You may be shocked by point 3, but I challenge you to study the history of Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule. If the Chinese army under Dictator Chiang-kai Shek had not seized Taiwan in the late 1940s and destroyed much of what the Japanese -- with cooperation from the Taiwanese -- had built, then Taiwan would have been the post-war economic and hi-tech superpower of the Pacific long before the Japanese economic titan appeared in the 1970s.

    1. Re:A Good Response to an Aging Population by reporter · · Score: 0, Offtopic
      In the above article, I made a serious typing error. The following statements in point 2 2. Massive importation of foreign engineers is vital to being competitive in engineering. (Japanese companies, which typically hire only native-born Japanese, hold the majority of patents in LCD displays.)

      should be changed to the following.

      2. Massive importation of foreign engineers is NOT vital to being competitive in engineering. (Japanese companies, which typically hire only native-born Japanese, hold the majority of patents in LCD displays.)