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Instead of a Wheel Chair, How About an Exoskeleton?
New submitter the_newsbeagle writes "This year, Ekso Bionics will roll out its most sophisticated exoskeleton ever. The company's robotic walking suit, called the Ekso, allows paraplegics to get back on their feet and walk on their own. The first commercial model will be sold to rehab hospitals for on-site physical therapy, but the company plans to have a model ready for at-home physical therapy by the end of 2012. In a few years, they plan to sell an Ekso that a paraplegic person can wear to the post office, to work, etc."
Luxury vehicles have had optional fully automatic parallel parking for a couple years now.
Next year some production models of mid range vehicles have optional automated lane drift correction.
We also have cruise control systems that automatically brake when you approach slower traffic.
So if exoskeletons are like self driving cars, then expect them to rapidly progress over the next decade and see some comercial deployment, but don't expect anything as bad ass as Starship Troopers power armor.
And backups.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
I personally wouldn't upload my brain into a computer for the same reason that I'd never agree to use a Star Trek style transporter if one is ever invented. Both are essentially a method of suicide that gets covered up by a replacement that appears to be the original.
Yet another reason why medical costs are shooting through the roof. Add to that, manual wheelchairs are carbon neutral. Electric wheel chairs can be decently effecient (the manufactures try their best for efficiency only to improve battery life, but that's a rare example of capitalism working). This, however, is likely to be an energy hog, and contribute to the death of the planet.
Of all the things to be worried about, the power used by exoskelatons / wheelchairs / HULC suits and other aliens are really at the bottom of the list.
Is your ability to look at orders-of-magnitude problems that impaired?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Ok, let's assume you connect, allow consciousness to transfer, then sever the connection but *don't* destroy the biological part. Who am I? I'd wager I'd still be the biological one, albeit the sillicon part may be a perfect copy. Now, kill the biological part. I'm dead. Thanks, but no, thanks. Not until we pinpoint conscience beyond "I think therefore I am".
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
This. Also, I've seen no less than three hard-drives that began failing a few weeks out of the box. In another instance I sent back a defective video card that was still under warranty. The replacement that was sent to me had a cooling fan that wouldn't spin due to large solder blobs shorting out power connector not to mention a surface mount capacitor that was mounted about 45 degrees out of alignment. Even if we assume that new equipment is perfect, computer hardware is not very tolerant to damage and certainly not self-repairing in the way the human body is. Add to all this we still don't know what type of system would be required to emulate a human being so it is quite a stretch to compare maintenence of modern systems to maintaining a human body. Another thing to consider is that if you think nuclear bombs / solar flares are scary now, just wait until you exist as a computer simulation and can be wiped out by an EMP. Lastly, I don't much care for the prospect of being built out of parts made in China let alone the motives of the software developers... even if it is open source.
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(consider how often you change the oil in your car vs how often you get your blood removed and filtered).
Twice a week. I'm on dialysis you insensitive clod!
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)