可穿戴机械：让人类变成钢铁侠

    军事

    像工业界一样，军队也希望提高士兵的力量。虽然美军对有关信息守口如瓶，但我们现在已经知道，洛克希德马丁公司(Lockheed Martin)正在利用Ekso Bionics公司开发的核心技术，打造一款名叫HULC Robotic的外骨骼系统。【它的发音听起来跟那位令人难以置信的《惊奇漫画》（Marvel Comics）超级英雄恰好是一样的。）这套外骨骼系统是液压系统，由电池提供动力，可以帮助士兵完成蹲下、匍匐等动作，以及负载重达200磅的装备。

    科技开发公司Battelle也与美国特种作战司令部合作，开发了一款所谓的“战术突击轻甲”（Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit）。虽然我们还不大清楚这套盔甲的细节，但是科技网站Gizmodo今年七月有机会近距离接触了这套盔甲，确任了它能够让士兵在负载更多装备的同时，还觉得自己身轻如燕。（那么有了这套“钢铁侠战衣”，他能飞起来吗？或许不能，不过如果他背着50磅的负载还能健步如飞，那也和飞差不了多少了。）

    在格里辛看来，军事行业对先进技术的保护过度，从而使这些技术很难流入私人部门用于其它用途。但是军工技术的利润会带来巨额的研发经费，从而有助于开发其他用于民用的应用。因此格里辛对军工技术转入某些领域感到很乐观——比如极限运动也可能需要专用的外骨骼系统。

    在某种意义上，从简单的工具到复杂的外骨骼系统，可穿戴机械设备意味着一种新的技术平台即将粉墨登场。这些设备将使人们——还包括管理他们的企业和机构——采用更大的力量、精确性和计算性能来从事高难度任务。工业革命和信息时代使人类在机器面前越来越被边缘化，那么让人穿上“机械战甲”，会不会让我们重回时代的舞台中央？（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    Military

    Like industry, the military wants strength for its skilled workers. Information about these devices is tightly guarded, but it’s known that what is now Ekso Bionics developed the core technology that Lockheed Martin is using to build the HULC Robotic Exoskeleton (its name is pronounced like the incredible Marvel Comics superhero), a battery-powered, hydraulic system that helps a soldier squat, crawl, and lift while carrying pack loads of up to 200 lbs.

    Similarly, Battelle, the science and technology development company, is working with the U.S. Special Operations Command to develop what it calls the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit. Not much is known about the Talos suit, but the technology site Gizmodo got a good look at the helmet in July, confirming an intention to use technology to pack more gear on a soldier’s body and make it feel like he or she is carrying less than ever. (Will he ever fly? Probably not, but if he can run at length with fifty pounds of dead weight on his body, close enough.)

    In Grishin’s view, the military will be too protective about what it develops for its advances to trickle into the private sector for use in other applications. But profits in military technology are a good source for R&D funds for other applications that could reach consumers, he says, and for that reason Grishin is optimistic that gear-heads in certain areas—say, extreme sports—will demand exoskeletons of their own.

    From simplified tools to fully developed exoskeletons, wearable robotics are in a sense the debut of a new technological platform. The devices promise to allow individuals—and by extension, the companies and organizations that manage them—to perform tasks with more strength, precision, and computational capacity. The Industrial Revolution and the Information Age each threatened to cut humans out of the picture in the name of efficiency. What if combining them puts us right back in the center?