/ News
Paralyzed Army veteran to walk again using exoskeleton
More than five years after crashing in an Iraqi desert, crushing his spine on impact, retired Army pilot Gary Linfoot will walk again on Veterans Day.
Using an exoskeleton that straps onto his waist and legs, Linfoot, of Clarksville, Tenn., will make the historic steps twice on Monday: once on NBC’s “Today” show and later in the afternoon at the Statue of Liberty. The retired U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer and former pilot with the “Night Stalkers” of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) told The Leaf-Chronicle the $125,000 unit will allow him to someday walk his daughter down the aisle, an unthinkable task just a few years ago.
"To have the chance to walk again, to see my wife Mari eye-to-eye, and hug my children heart-to-heart is a feeling I cannot begin to explain." Gary Linfoot
“The first time I stood up in it was such a cool feeling,” Linfoot told the newspaper of the Ekso Bionics exoskeleton. “I know, it’s not unassisted yet, but it was pretty cool to see the world from that perspective again, to be tall again.”
The device has been paid for by a privately-run nonprofit organization called Infinite Hero. Since its inception in 2011, the organization has issued grants totaling nearly $1.3 million to returning military veterans. Linfoot is the first veteran to receive the Ekso suit for personal use and will demonstrate its capabilities alongside his wife, Mari, and fellow veterans some five years after his helicopter suffered a catastrophic mechanical failure during his 19th combat tour in Iraq on May 31, 2008.
“It is among the greatest honors of my life to receive the first Ekso device,” Linfoot said in a release announcing the event. “To have the chance to walk again, to see my wife Mari eye-to-eye, and hug my children heart-to-heart is a feeling I cannot begin to explain. I’m thrilled to act as an ambassador to expand the use of this technology in the hopes to one day grant the same life-changing experience to other wounded veterans.”
Linfoot realizes he still has a “ways to go” in his recovery, but he’s undeniably giddy as to where technology may take him one day.
“I don’t want to oversell this,” Linfoot told The Leaf-Chronicle. “It’s just the basics, so it has a ways to go, but with modern technology, it seems like the capacity doubles every few years. Where we’re at, you can equate it with the Model A Ford. Look how that started out and look at what we’re driving now. You have to start somewhere.”
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/11/11/paralyzed-army-veteran-to-walk-again-using-exoskeleton/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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