Future Files:Half-Man / Half-Robo-Killing-Machine: The Exoskeleton Soldier / Office Worker of The Future
Posted On: 26 November 2007 By: Jay Oatway Filed Under: Duelling Realities | Info-slavery | Robot Revolt | Runway Hard-Wear
The army of one just got a bit stronger thanks to Sarcos, who’s won a contract to deliver an exoskeleton to the military next year. Here’s a recent demo video that’s making the rounds (as seen on Engadget, Communist Robot, Wired and LiveLeek)
The story has been a long one in coming — I first read about it back in 2004 on WMMNA. The dream for this particular exoskeleton comes from Dr. Stephen Jacobsen (pictured), and it goes beyond warfare. Civilian applications abound, from construction sites to trekking.
But let’s take the good doctor’s daydream even further: Imagine the techno-tailor of the future seamlessly stitching exoskeleton morphing material into true power suits, allowing your average desk jockey to wrestle grizzly bears on his lunch break–and look fresh from the pages of GQ while doing so. Then take that a step further, and add haptic (force feedback) abilities into the garments so that the wearer can be pushed, pulled, stood-up and made to move at someone elses command — turning your white collar crowd into half-man / half-robo-killing machine puppets controlled by their CEO, marching on his competition… Hmm… It seems this technology keeps coming back to warfare.
Perhaps that’s why Dr. Jacobsen is pleased that Sarcos was recently acquired by giant defense contractor Raytheon.
The future can bench press a battleship.
