Those Wacky Japanese

Exoskeletons are Here!!

They're at it again. The Japanese long known for their inventive prowess have developed a 33lb battery powered exoskeleton, powerful enough to allow this tiny Japanese man to pick up this even tinier Japanese woman. Their working towards a way to get it to help open those tough pickle and jelly jars.

Seriously though, the Japanese are always ahead of the curve with respect to Robotech (pun totally intended). Toyota has Asimo and it seems they add functionality to that thing all the time (last time I checked it was walking up stairs and getting up from a lying face down position). There are robots to help disabled people achieve everyday tasks and even robots to watch your kids. Now the Japanese have taken it to the next level and integrated the robot right into the human frame. This suit takes impulses of your muscles, through your skin, and "enhances" them whatever that means. Leaving it at that would have been way to easy so they made it autonomous as well. This means as a paraplegic you would be able to walk with the use of this exo-skeleton. The idea seems pretty awesome, although I see myself jumping into one of these things to do some heavy lifting then suddenly taking off in an unknown direction against my will. Probably to have some hot robot sex with some type of curvy construction vehicle. Scary.
I was always wandering when we could categorically say we have crossed over into the realm of the true cyborg, no matter what you define cyborg as. This suit brings things pretty close if you ask me. Congrats to those wacky Japanese!