George Rebane

Imagine a bicycle seat connected by mechanical frames to a pair of shoes for an idea of how the new wearable assisted-walking gadget from Honda works.

The experimental device, unveiled Friday, is designed to support bodyweight, reduce stress on the knees and help people get up steps and stay in crouching positions.

Honda envisions the device being used by workers at auto or other factories. It showed a video of Honda employees wearing the device and bending to peer underneath vehicles on an assembly line.

So starts an article sent by a correspondent that describes the next steps (pun intended) toward the Singularity.  My rejoinder was that this kind of contraption may let me run a marathon on my 90th birthday.  Bit by piece in the coming years we’ll replace our innards and our outards, in the process becoming something we know not what.

Honda’s envisioning the target consumers being factory workers is a bit of stretch (aka all wet).  Japan’s aging population (followed by EU’s and America’s) will be walking around on these while the factory workers are replaced by even more technology.

The question that comes to many minds at this point is – then who’s going to earn the money to pay for such gizmos used by non-working people?  Who indeed?  Stay tuned.