sexy.

I'd rather have a HAL-5. Do an image search for it, it's pretty awesome. And it's been around for years.

=O wow
Just out of curiosity, if you were lifting weights in the suit, would that build your muscle? If so, it could help people in rehabilitations to lift like a bajillion pounds and gain there muscle back, or help me show off to the ladies :)

Ewok:

It wouldnt matter if you could lift a million pounds in the suit, you gain muscle on how much YOU lift. So if the suit makes lifting a million pounds equivalent to lifting 10 pounds... you might as well just lift a 10 pound weight because its the same.

^_^

Hmm thats pretty cool. I can see why the military is paying out-the wazoo for this thing. Personaly i think it should be used for construction, to save on energy and only have to endanger 3 men instead of 50.

Also i dont like the idea of wasting it fighting battles, it seems like kind of a waste if u ask me.

And the disabled thing is a really great idea if you can make it less noticeable, and or bulky.

-Word.of.Warcraft

I like the idea of an exo suit, but using hydrualics to move the limbs seems outdated for something so advanced. when will they come up with some type of synthetic muscle that minipulates the human muscle better adn faster.

I think idea is good and maybe not a perfect but still it is a
beginning /in progress I mean/.
Maybe when that apparatus have more good connection with
human body and they work in symbiosis...

The technology is facinating, though I fear that we are moving far to slowly with advancements in science. It is taking far to long to come up with new advancements. There are not enough people that are of literal genius status or near genius status involving themselves in science. Myself, I am ashamed that I don't even know how to type or spell properly, even though I was seen as a pheonom as a child. Remember Einstein was bad with phone numbers. I need to educate myself. I fear it is coming far to late in my life, but I have to try. I spent to much time drinking beer, and not enough time diving into books. I will say this for the exo-skeleton, it is worth waiting for. The applications are going to be quite varried. I just don't want to see a college kid hitting a bong off campus meeting his death to the new rookie of the patrol squad as he rolls up and torches the poor chitlin... Ow!

CAN YOU SAY POLICE BRUTALITY?

Hey mwesty64, I dont see how hydraulics are outdated. That would be like saying I dont see why they use wheels for cars, they should hover by now. An application such as this uses quite advanced technology to sync appropriately with the movement of the body and could be used for a number of different things other than supplementing a human engaged in combat....

This is an old idea in the science fiction world going back to the 40s, 50s and 60s. If you are going to do a power suit timeline, how about mentioning Robert Heinlein's flying (or at least high-jumping) combat power suits in his original Starship Troopers novel (1959) or the power suit in the Robocop (1989) movies.

Anytime a human and a machine integrate in an intimate way to perform tasks that a human being could not perform on his or her own, (Steve Auston, The Six Million Dollar Man-1973 anyone?) you essentially have a cyborg, even if the connection is only temporary. It doesn't matter if the machine is enhancing human muscles/sensors or replacing them.

Of course the suits will eventually be used in other than military roles. It’s call “spin-off” and it has been going on since military technology started to advance from stone knives and bear skin shields. Most likely the first civilian application for the military type of power suit will be heavy construction.

However, this is not an either or situation. This technology can be applied to both civilian and military uses without taking away from either one. But I guess it’s pretty easy to talk about the use of such power suits to defend the United States and give our troops the best protection and firepower as a “waste” when your sitting safe, sound and free here in the states while someone else is doing the heavy lifting to defend you overseas, isn’t it?

It should be mentioned that power "waldo" (again, from Robert Heinlein in his 1942 short story of the same name) style mechanical "hands" are already being used for dangerous remote work and medical applications. Such manipulators can scale up or down (for delicate work like micro-surgery) the movements and apparent strength of the operator’s hands and arms. They have been used for years in the medical, chemical and nuclear industries.

One suggestion... No armor is truly impervious against the right kind of counter weapons. Even heavily armored tanks can be destroyed or penetrated with certain types of shoulder launched rockets and even high caliber rifle fire. So, there will be casualties, even amongst soldiers wearing heavily armored power suits. It might be a good idea to program the electronics in the power suit to automatically run, walk or even crawl (if the machine can still move at all) the wounded or dead combat soldier back to his own lines, once the on-board computer determines by monitoring the physical condition of the operator that the soldier in incapacitated.

This way, a wounded trooper could get medical attention as soon as possible or, at least, the body could be recovered. It would also keep the formidable weapon that the suit represents from falling into enemy hands. Biometric lock-out systems could also be used to prevent an enemy from acquiring a usable power suit.

This might be a good idea for the current crop of military tanks and armored vehicles in cases where the machine can still function, but the occupants are out of action. The robot vehicle driving systems that have won the DARPA trials could point the way to such automated recovery systems.