Good News, Bad News (or The Crippled Walk, Judgement Day's Coming)

The Good News:

It seems that the Whiz Kids at University of Tsukuba in Japan have developed a powered exo-skeleton that can enable it's wearer to lift up to ten times the weight they could without it.

From the article at NY1.com the creator, Jackson Roykirk, er, I mean Yoshiyuki Sankai is working on ways to use the tech in the exo-skeleton to help people who have mobility problems to get around.

On tap for the exo-skeleton:

"The next big test comes this summer, when a Japanese physical therapist will actually carry one of his patients, a polio patient, all the way to the top of a mountain in the Swiss Alps.

After that, the challenge will be helping people who've lost control of their limbs climb on their own. One of the patients who comes to my laboratory lost his legs, so we are preparing, developing his artificial legs by using this technology, says Sankai."

It also seems that Oscar Goldman might get off a lot cheaper...

"Developers expect when the suit becomes commercially available - they hope within the next few years - it'll likely cost somewhere around $20,000."

(But because The OSI is a gummint operation, I have faith they will figure out a way to piss away the other $5.98 million...)

Now for The Bad News:

Click on the title of this post to go to a site with pix of the exo-skeleton. Now notice the credits under the pictures... "CYBERDYNE".

You remember that name, don't you?? The company that cooked up the self-aware computer that wound up biting off the hand that created it and then going on a murderous rampage in a quest to rid the planet of human beings by playing a little game of Global Thermo-Nuclear War and then developing the Terminator series to hunt down and finish us off, remember??

And if that wasn't bad enough, check out the name of the damned thing... HAL. Remember him, the computer that lost it's mind in 2001: A Space Odyssey?? "Open the pod-bay doors, HAL." "Kiss my ass, Dave. I've already killed everybody else on board, what's one more?? You gonna die, motherfucker!!"

Double Whammy!! I vote we send Sarah Conner to Japan to wack Sankai-san before this shit gets out of hand...