Walking with Rex
In the news over the past few days from New Zealand is Rex, an exoskeletal robotic leg system for paraplegics.
It’s often said that (hard) science fiction inspires the future and RexBonics’ robotic legs are no exception, apparently inspired in part by Sigourney Weaver’s character in Alien using a robotic exoskeleton to fight off an alien.
(Listening to the interviews, it is clearly more inspired by the people who might benefit, including one of the developers.)
The name Rex comes from robotic exoskeleton and is the result of seven years development by the Auckland company backed by local investors No 8 Ventures.
As you can imagine this has sparked a lot of discussion, including criticism.
For a very quick view (38 seconds) of Rex in action, this from Russia Today:
A more detailed coverage with interviews is provided by the New Zealand Herald (3 min. 56 sec.):
Other articles at Code for life:
Scientific article download costs
Temperature-induced hearing loss
7 Responses to “Walking with Rex”
OMG, the Wrong Trousers nightmare comes one step closer.
Bob,
You’re right!
I’m kicking myself. I should have included an image of it!
I love the films, they’re excellent.
PS: I’ve noticed your comments don’t turn up on the front page. Wearing my programmer’s hat, I wonder if there is a bug triggered by the single quote in your name. (Now this is a scientist for you, always trying to figure things out…)
Hm, let’s try an experiment then.
There you are 🙂
You’re on the front page now. So… you get the option of hiding or letting the world know 😉
(Nice to know my programmer’s instincts aren’t amiss. I really should have tested this myself, though…)
What happens if I try to escape the apostrophe? Let’s see. Backslash inserted, and off we go…
Ah, now you get it both ways 🙂
You’re thinking along the same lines as me, I think 🙂 (String parsing errors, etc.)
Here’s a recent report of Personal Exoskeletons for Paraplegics:
http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=26328&channel=biomedicine§ion=