/ News

13.01.2016

This Is What It's Like To Test-Drive A Bionic Exoskeleton

R70i looks like the blue, robotic love child of C-3PO and Iron Man. Glowing lights line the bionic exoskeleton’s joints, which bend only at odd angles, and a chest plate gives the entire outfit a Superman vibe.

But far from bestowing its wearers with superpowers, this bionic exoskeleton mimics the aging process, to help raise awareness and empathy for the elderly.

When I strapped into Genworth’s R70i Aging Experience at CES 2016, an enormous consumer technology conference in Las Vegas, my joints froze with arthritis, my eyes clouded with glaucoma and my ears rang with tinnitus. For an uncomfortable twenty minutes or so, I experienced the isolation and frustration of struggling to move and communicate and, in the process, gained incredible insight into the plight of the elderly and disabled. 

“What we really hope is that there’s a conversation to be had,” says Candace Hammer of Applied Minds LLC, the company that partnered with Genworth to create the suit. “We hope the empathy angle makes people compassionate about their loved ones who are going through [the aging process].”

It’s a tall order, and the robotic suit that accomplishes this feat is quite immersive. The exoskeleton itself weighs about 40 pounds—a figure that its creators say more-or-less mimics the weight gain and muscle loss of old age. But that’s the easy part. With the flick of a switch, the suit can restrict your motion in eight major limb joints, which makes moving around uncomfortable.

It gets worse. The suit’s eyewear displays a real-time “augmented reality” (which occasionally freezes up, adding to the disorientation) and it can simulate the debilitating effects of glaucoma, macular degeneration, cataracts and floaters. Meanwhile, signals sent to the noise-cancelling headphones simulate ringing of the ears and hearing loss, as well as the neurological conditon aphasia, a form of speech loss. The exoskeleton butchers your senses and makes everyday tasks—from communicating to walking—impossible.

The goal, of course, is to offer insight into the aging process, and teach us to have some empathy for the elderly. With 75 million baby boomers reaching retirement, and more than 70 percent of Americans over the age of 65 requiring long-term care, a little empathy could go a long way. For instance, the exhibitors noted that putting and elderly person with hearing loss at the end of a dinner table is unfair; it’s hard enough for him or her to communicate, even under the best conditions. And inviting your grandparents for a long walk on the beach might not be such a great idea if they have arthritis.

In the exoskeleton, it’s easy to understand the strong connection between disabilities and isolation. When the machine blocked my hearing and garbled my speech, it wasn’t just difficult to carry on a conversation—it was easier to stay silent. When the robot locked up my legs and stooped my back, it wasn’t just unpleasant to go on a short walk—it was a hassle to put one foot in front of the other.

I kept asking myself how someone with these disabilities would find the willpower to even get out of bed in the morning. This realization instantly made the “old hermit” paradigm feel insulting. How many older adults simply prefer to be alone because of the effort and pain associated with getting up and going out to see their friends?

“That’s the social isolation we’re talking about,” says Segun Oduolowu, also with Applied Minds LLC. “That’s someone being at the end of a dinner table, trying to have a conversation with their family, feeling like they can’t, and [so] keeping quiet.”

“We’re trying to change that.”

Source: http://www.vocativ.com/news/269090/ces-bionic-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"
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