Finally, my dreams are but a few hundred million bucks and a coupla years away.
Here is streaming video of a fully articulated powered exoskeleton, now under development by Ratheon:
http://www.liveleak....iew?i=109_1195663753Sure, it's tethered. Sure, it has an external power supply. But my god: look at the ease with which the wearer does impossible tasks! Lifting 200 pounds repeatedly with full, natural motion. Running, walking, tip-toeing.
Dancing.
It looks cleverly designed, "getting out of the way" when the user wants to manipulate something bare-handed. (One might imagine the dangerous hilarity of trying to, say, brush your teeth while wearing the thing.)
It navigates stairs, ramps, and the design suggests sitting or reclining is possible.
The makers even go so far as to say the skeleton can operate autonomously, while its human wanders off to do biological things. Even if it's something as simple as coming when it's called ("here, boy!") that alone would be our first real application of humanoid robotics. Truly, we are living in the future.
Once they get the power-pack integrated I can easily see applications for these everywhere.
And if anyone disagrees with that, we can settle this the old fashioned way: power-suit to power-suit.
