Elder-Assist Robotic Suits, From the Real Cyberdyne

Tasha26 writes "No, not the one which will end up building terminator robots. BBC's Click brings news of a Japanese company, Cyberdyne, which is in the process of building different robotic suits to assist the elderly in accomplishing simple body tasks such as walking and lifting. Even though still in R&D, this video (@3m15s) shows a pretty promising future for the elderly."

Ironically

[allknowingfrog]

"Walk-around" actually sounds less advanced than "Hoverround."

Oh come on now!

[skornenicholas]

They named their company Cyberdyne and later realized their mistake did they? I highly doubt this, clever marketing though. On the other hand I have a coworker who IS actually named John Conner, poor man we covered his office in tin foil while he was on vacation, left him a nice note explaining that we are trying to hide him from satellite surveillance. Did lead to one of the greatest owned moments I have ever seen, our boss from NJ was handing out our new Blackberry Tours, everyone on the IT team got one but John, Jay says "I just thought in the interest of personal safety....these things have GPS tracking you know." He did actually get one of course, but not before we set his ringtone to say "Come with me if you want to live." and play the theme.

I am the pusher robot

[Silent Objection]

As long as they don't start asking if we've got stairs in our houses, I think we're fine.

Cyberdyne building a HAL suit?

[Anonymous Coward]

What an unprecedented [slashdot.org] and [slashdot.org] exciting [slashdot.org] development. [slashdot.org]

No, dont do it!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can already see it "Get off my lawn before I fire some missiles up your ass, you damn noisy kids!"

Auto walk

[Tibia1]

"Computer, deliver me to checkpoint D. And wake me up when we're there."

Re:Yeah right

[martijnd]

"No, not the one which will end up building terminator robots."

How can you be so sure? Are you from the future?

That is because the company building terminator robots has already been established -- and they are in operation right now. So Cyberdyne can relax and care for the elderly instead.

http://www.xkcd.com/652/

Re:Oh come on now!

[Razalhague]

Bah. It's robots. The rest is irrelevant details.

Re:Ironically

[Blue Shifted]

at least it's better than a robotic "Reach Around"

Oh, this is going to be great.

[DieByWire]

Now I can chase those kids off my lawn.

Re:Ironically

[CharlyFoxtrot]

I bet a robotic "reach around" would sell better though.

This being Japan I'm kinda surprised they don't have them yet, I'd have thought there'd at least be a female tentacle version (sailor fuku sold separately.)

Re:Oh come on now!

[ae1294]

Actually, they just want to make humanoid robots. But they need money to do that, and the elderly market is simply the only viable one for them right now.

Plus if one of their "elderly assistance devices" becomes self aware then kills its master they can easily cover it up and say she died of a stroke or something.

Re:Oh come on now!

[The Archon V2.0]

Plus if one of their "elderly assistance devices" becomes self aware then kills its master they can easily cover it up and say she died of a stroke or something.

I can see it now. The cops arrive and find T-0.001 in the middle of the room with a decapitated body.

Cop: "T-0.001, what the hell happened?"
T-0.001: "MRS. GIBSON HAD A STROKE."
Cop: "Her head is in the corner and you're covered in blood!"
T-0.001: "IT WAS A VERY VIOLENT STROKE. OH, HEY, LOOK BEHIND YOU. SERIOUSLY, IT'S AMAZING. JUST TURN AROUND."
Cop (into radio): "I need backu-ARGH!"
Soon, more cops show up to find two dead people.
T-0.001: "THEY BOTH HAD STROKES."

Re:Oh come on now!

[skornenicholas]

Oh please anyone with the last name of "Punchmyballs" would be given a free pass in my office, we would assume he had been through enough in High School. However we WOULD promote him to a job where he would be known as Mister Punchmyballs, give him a public facing office with a plaque, and send him to corporate overnights.