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See title. I did not see anything in the video which could not be done by relying solely on your ordinary inner skeleton. Except of looking silly, which judging from western media's coverage of Japanese culture must be Japan's most popular pastime.

But I will give some props to the exoskeletons -- they did not keep that girl from swaying her ass so nicely. Maybe they even enhanced it.

The military version might be able to lift 200lb weights, speed box, run, jump and other amazing things.

Nothing a cup of water wont put a stop to.

From TFA, the exoskeleton from the Japanese is being made to help the disabled and the immobile. The US exoskeleton? It's for the soldier of tomorrow.

Interesting priorities, that tell a lot about each culture.

The title of the original article says that these exoskeletons may soon become like bicycles. I doubt that and I'm sure that most governments will outlaw them. Whoever wears them could pose a serious threat to the people around him/her and why would anyone wear one for show if not for work (like construction) or fighting (which is illegal) ?

I watched the video of the three people walking the streets with leg exoskeletons.

Argh! It just abounds in wrongness! They are all in black, with white exoskeletons. There should be a red one, a blue one and a yellow one or some such! Don't these people watch Sentai shows?

With the decrease in actual exercise performed while wearing one of these suits, soon everyone will be too fucking FAT to fit into them.

And another thing...

"Developing story! Epileptic in HAL suit has seizure on subway...18 reported dead. More at 11!"

I've posted a few times in this thread in an entirely joking manner, but something I couldn't quite put my finger on has been bothering me about this whole thing. It finally struck me.

I occasionally do a little demonstration to show how the body responds to certain stimuli. You can try it yourself. Stand in a doorway, place the outside of your wrists against the sides of the doorjamb (the door has to be open, idiot), and apply steady, yet heavy pressure outwards with both arms, as if you are trying to do a jumping-jack, but the doorjamb is preventing your arms from going all the way up. Push hard. Hold it, still applying outward pressure, for a count of 60 seconds, then step out of the doorway and just relax, with your arms hanging at your sides. Weird, huh?

Your arms will almost immediately begin raising back into the previous position, outwards, without any intentional effort, almost as if you are in a zero-G environment.

Astronauts experience the exact opposite of this. They do not require much effort to move around, so that when they are suddenly back on Earth, it is very difficult for them to move around. I am not talking about muscle atrophy. That takes much longer to happen. As the previous exercise demonstrates, it takes a mere 60 seconds to condition the body to changes in the environment, yet it takes just as long for it to re-adapt.

Now imagine a soldier in the field. Blastin' away, running hither and yon, jumpin' jack flash, for hours on end, his movements amplified by this crazy borg suit. Suddenly he takes a hit in the powerpack, or it just runs outta juice in the middle of a fire-fight. So what does he do? He takes the fucking thing off, otherwise he is a deadman (or simply laying there like one).

Here is the problem. He is so conditioned to the suit, now it is off, it takes a long time to readjust. He is STILL a sitting duck, blundering around like a 40oz drunk because his muscles/brain are still expecting the suit to be doing most of the work.

This is a bad scenario. He is the Terminator while the battery lasts, and Erkle-the-Wonder-Geek with no body armor when it goes dead.

I think I'd rather hump the 80lb pack around and be able to dump it (and float like a butterfly) when the shit really hit the fan.