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Instead of a Wheel Chair, How About an Exoskeleton?

Posted by timothy on from the yes-please dept.

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."

25 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Awesome, but.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I still consider it a transitionary solution, useful, but only until we can grow organs and nerve tissue and basically fix people like we fix machinery :)

    1. Re:Awesome, but.. by CRCulver · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I still consider it a transitionary solution, useful, but only until we can grow organs and nerve tissue and basically fix people like we fix machinery :)

      It's interesting you think that, as it's rather the opposite of the trend of science-fiction and posthumanist fantasizing.

      For the former, Larry Niven's Known Space universe (such as the tales in Flatlander ) had organ transplantation as a widely implemented medical solution (amusingly leading to the death penalty for even minor crimes), but eventually ended by alloplasty, "gadgets instead of organs".

      For the latter, Ray Kurzweil and his fans hope that we'll be able to upload our brains into computers any day now. And that's understandable, since a civilization that has technology advanced enough to produce new biological parts in vitro may be on the cusp of transcending biology entirely.

    2. Re:Awesome, but.. by oodaloop · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And backups.

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      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    3. Re:Awesome, but.. by hedwards · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Awesome, but.. by smi.james.th · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That would take the term "Blue Screen of Death" to a whole new level.

      --
      One thing I know, and that is that I am ignorant...
    5. Re:Awesome, but.. by Khazunga · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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".

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      If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
    6. Re:Awesome, but.. by timeOday · · Score: 5, Interesting

      98% of the atoms on your body are replaced ever year, whether or not you take a ride in a transporter. So, "you" are not a certain set of particles, but rather a self-propagating pattern.

    7. Re:Awesome, but.. by shadowrat · · Score: 4, Funny

      Tell that to Thomas Riker.

    8. Re:Awesome, but.. by Rhacman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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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      Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
    9. Re:Awesome, but.. by dkleinsc · · Score: 3, Informative

      Just always remember this little ditty by Douglas Adams "I teleported home one night with Ron and Sid and Meg. Ron stole Meggie's heart away, and I got Sidney's leg."

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    10. Re:Awesome, but.. by kilfarsnar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      (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)
    11. Re:Awesome, but.. by BattleApple · · Score: 4, Informative

      it's the Ship of Theseus paradox

    12. Re:Awesome, but.. by Miamicanes · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've always thought something like that would make an awesome plot for a Sci-Fi movie -- people use transporters to go everywhere, multiple times per day, but the reality is that you end up with two conscious copies of the same person, and the old one gets automatically destroyed once the copy and replication is complete. The new copy steps out at the other end feeling like the teleportation worked flawlessly, and the old person (itself a multi-Nth copy of the person who was born years earlier) stands in the booth wondering why it's not working, until he gets killed and vaporized (with people who've seen the process believing it's part of the teleportation process, instead of a purely destructive clean-up act, and very few genuinely understanding what's really going on... because nobody would ever step into such a booth knowing that they themselves were going to effectively die, even if their "consciousness" lived on after replication elsewhere).

      Now, imagine a teleporter whose "destructor" system fails after working well enough to injure (instead of kill) someone who just teleported, and leaves him convinced that terrorists are systematically murdering people -- and has no idea that it's now teleportation machines are *intended* to work, and eventually manages to teleport home from work after a visit to the hospital, only to run into himself#2.n, who just uneventfully teleported home from work after a perfectly normal day that included about a half-dozen teleportations that worked "without incident".

      Now, stir in some extra details to make it a real story... engineers who stumbled on the truth while trying to reverse-engineer the process for a start-up competitor (who were summarily committed to a mental institution, because at that point, teleporters had been used by everyone multiple times per day since birth, and the whole *idea* that teleportation == death was viewed as ludicrous... were hospitalized, then truly went insane after being forcibly teleported multiple times per day at the mental hospital (knowing each time what was really happening to them). Add a legal system completely unprepared to deal with both the consequences of having two copies of the same person, and a society where all other forms of transportation had effectively ceased to exist and teleportation was literally the only way to travel more than a few thousand feet (even elevators were replaced by teleporters by that time, and stairs were increasingly uncommon).

      Fun stuff ;-)

  2. Meh... by taiwanjohn · · Score: 4, Funny

    Call me when you have a flying exoskeleton.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
    1. Re:Meh... by taiwanjohn · · Score: 4, Informative

      After taking the time to actually watch the video, I'm impressed (and not just by the cute chick). I'm also surprised that the current model still requires remote-control input from the therapist, though they say that will be sorted out in the next version. In the end, it's all about the user experience, and this girl seems to be pretty enthusiastic about it. Kudos!

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
    2. Re:Meh... by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm also surprised that the current model still requires remote-control input from the therapist, though they say that will be sorted out in the next version.

      Except the remote control aspect could be a serious problem: It's The Wrong Trousers, Gromit, and they've gone wrong!

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  3. I'm confused by bigattichouse · · Score: 3, Funny

    What's a post office?

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    meh
    1. Re:I'm confused by virgnarus · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hobby shop for stamp collectors.

  4. Ob by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have a class two rating.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  5. previous stories by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Informative

    Fwiw, previous coverage on Slashdot of related products:

    Human Exoskeletons Getting Closer (March 2009)

    Elder-Assist Robotic Suits, From the Real Cyberdyne (October 2009)

    eLEGS Exoskeleton Allows Paraplegics To Walk (October 2010)

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  6. As per Ripley. by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    Get away from her, you bitch!

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    Trolling is a art,
  7. Re:No bionic man yet by Nadaka · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  8. Re:No bionic man yet by thomasw_lrd · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oblig XKCD

    http://xkcd.com/678/

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    21st Century Renaissance Man
  9. Re:Nice but by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

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    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  10. Stephen Hawking by Leif_Bloomquist · · Score: 4, Funny

    Stephen Hawking did this upgrade back in 1997 ;-)

    http://www.theonion.com/articles/stephen-hawking-builds-robotic-exoskeleton,1629/