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Article: Shaping our future along with robots.
- Article from:
- Japan Times (Tokyo, Japan)
- Article date:
- December 31, 2006
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Japan Times. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Tomoko Otake
Dec. 31--Yoshiyuki Sankai is a professor of engineering at Tsukuba University in Ibaraki Prefecture and a front-runner in the field of "cybernics," which combines robotics with a wide array of academic disciplines, including neurology, information technology, behavioral science and psychology. Now aged 48, he is most famous for developing HAL, a "robot suit" that moves with its wearer by detecting the subtle electrical changes in muscles as they move. HAL (no relation to the "killer" computer in Stanley Kubrick's famed movie, "2001: A Space Odyssey"), which stands for "hybrid assistive limb," can help wearers to perform tasks they would not ...