New Star Wars Toy Lets You Use The Force For Real
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
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Levitation has nothing to do with telepathy...
...it's not that I don't have the money to get it. I simply can't justify spending it on this. Instead, I'll continue reading the new Star Wars Essential Atlas.
...it's not that I don't have the money to get it. I simply can't justify spending it on this. Instead, I'll continue reading the new Star Wars Essential Atlas.
Okay, I might have a slightly skewed image of the technology used here, but somehow, I doubt they actually use software to separate you concentrating on the ball from doing anything else. You could probably lift that thing just by typing a post, or doing some homework. Hell, even thinking about a field of flowers could be enough.
You don't have a skewed image of the tech. You are absolutely right and the only reason I keep coming back to this thread is to make sure I catch all the "OMG this is so new and cool" posts and beat them to death... or simply point them in the right direction before they buy the damn thing.Alleged_Alec said:
Since 1988, Japan has been demonstrating "exo-skeletons", the first demo had an arm harness that multiplied applied force by 40x. That was 1988 and I saw it in my AP Psychology textbooks few years back. They were going to use it for ripping twisted cars apart in highway wrecks, and warehouse usage.Therumancer said:Generally speaking we've been analyzing brain waves since what? The 1960s. All this really shows is that brain wave analyzers have become smaller and cheaper, and that someone figured out a way to hook one up to a remote control so it can operate based on the kind of simple exercises that proved brainwaves existed/were viable for study decades ago.
It's a neat toy, but not something I see as being paticularly incredible when I actually think about it. It's just a matter of "professional grade" technology coming into the consumer entertainment marker... and doing so rather late at that.
If the idea catches on you'll probably see more, similar gimmicks over a period of time.
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As far as Japan's wierd directions of technological development... we've all heard stories, but other than some neat developments in robotics I haven't actually seen much, and they are more or less under the thumb of the US goverment when you get down to it (ie, despite being nice and diplomatic about it, our navy more or less occupies Japan, and they only have an SSDF by our say so). Chances are if they were coming up with anything paticularly cool, we would have seen more about it.
Truthfully I sort of suspect we're a lot closer to them creating some kind of pseudo-robotic live doll with adjustable sex toys than genetically superior humans, neural interfaces, or giant robotic war machines. If they had any serious progress on anything like that, chances are the US would have taken it from them a long time ago. That sounds mean and tyranical, but it's also fairly honest, and to be frank while they turn out some need science fiction and fantasy, and I like some aspects of their culture, I am personally a long way from trusting The Japanese. The racism implicit in things like the Mcdonalds Ads mentioned on these forums demonstrates why.
But heck, as guys like Cheeze Pavilian and others will probaby tell you, I'm a highly nationalistic, American cultural supremicist (with militant tendencies). I also think we
need more people like me.
I don't consider the Japanese "enemies" at the moment, but I don't make the mistake of thinking they are our bosom buddies either. I also think Japanaphilles and Weaaboos are insane given the remaining racism, and the stuff Japan was up to less than a century ago. Sad because once I was close to becoming a weaboo myself.
But, I guess their "non-existant" military is using it now as those implementations are not present. Military Research ALWAYS comes first.
ASIMO(made by a car company, just like Mitsubishi made submarines and bombs during the war) is doing quite well. They are also inventing an optical/digital cloak. They demoed that too.
Mount Fuji is the world's 2nd largest, underground airport/testing facility(since 1944 when they launched those rocket suicide jets from it "Okas?"). Area 51 being the first. So they have plenty of spaces to hide robotic advancements. I say, 1 cute Terminator with GPS-hacking, strength and speed of a small tank and optical camo = 1 army.
Japan does not like anyone. They don't even like the Ryukyu islanders...and they are Japanese...they have a very small-minded culture.
At least we have fitted our nuclear warheads with mostly Neutron tips. WW3 is back on the table. \o/
I for one, welcome our new robot/alien/mutant/Communist/Capitalist/Led Zeppelin/female? Overlords.
Since 1988, Japan has been demonstrating "exo-skeletons", the first demo had an arm harness that multiplied applied force by 40x. That was 1988 and I saw it in my AP Psychology textbooks few years back. They were going to use it for ripping twisted cars apart in highway wrecks, and warehouse usage.
But, I guess their "non-existant" military is using it now as those implementations are not present. Military Research ALWAYS comes first.
ASIMO(made by a car company, just like Mitsubishi made submarines and bombs during the war) is doing quite well. They are also inventing an optical/digital cloak. They demoed that too.
Mount Fuji is the world's 2nd largest, underground airport/testing facility(since 1944 when they launched those rocket suicide jets from it "Okas?"). Area 51 being the first. So they have plenty of spaces to hide robotic advancements. I say, 1 cute Terminator with GPS-hacking, strength and speed of a small tank and optical camo = 1 army.
Japan does not like anyone. They don't even like the Ryukyu islanders...and they are Japanese...they have a very small-minded culture.
At least we have fitted our nuclear warheads with mostly Neutron tips. WW3 is back on the table. \o/
I for one, welcome our new robot/alien/mutant/Communist/Capitalist/Led Zeppelin/female? Overlords.[/quote]
Hmmm, not quite sure if I agree with you on a lot of that. I am not familiar with the "Exo Glove" you mentioned (which sounds like an expensive alternative to "The Jaws Of Life"), but it does not surprise me that someone made a toy like that.
I do not consider Exo-Skeletons to be anything all that special anymore, people have been using them underwater for a while now. Heck, I think it was back in the 1980s that they had James Bond fight one (in "For Your Eyes Only" I think), they also used them in movies like "The Abyss" and "Deep Star Six". They had a real one out when I went to Disney World to show it off along with some other undewater deep sea robotics.
I do not think Japan is really unique in that area, though as I said they have made some interesting advances in robotics. I do not think anything they have is really high on the threat level, and I'm pretty sure anything they are developing at places like Mt. Fuji is under our constant suerveillance one way or another.
The problem with the whole concept of Exoskeletons and "Powered Armor" is that by definition once you advance in technology to the point where you could give one man the power of a modern tank, you could give an actual tank a bajillion times the power of a modern tank. There is no point in encasing your soldier in steel armor if all of the weapons on the current battlefield blow through that like it wasn't there anyway, and the mounted weapons are really ineffective against anything but other troops to begin with. Sure it makes for cool science fantasy, but in the end there are a lot of logical problems as it usually relies on the rest of the battlefield not progressing in proportion to the man based armor for whatever reason.
I also find the idea of "super robots" and "battle mechs" entertaining but in the end I'm not buying that they are going to squash equally advanced tanks (which are a more functional design) especially seeing as if you can make a "Gundam" fly there is no reason why your going to keep your tanks on treads, you can just make Grav Tanks.
I guess guys like David Drake kind of sold me on their vision of the modern battlefield.
I myself have heard about Japan wanting to employ military robotics, but if they are developing such things I figure it's generally ignored due to implasibility. Even if they succeed it's just a more complicated way of achieving the same, or inferior results to something else.
It's sort of like the whole idea of the "Laser Gun". People have been intrigued by the idea of putting holes in people and things with handheld lasers since very early science fiction novels. Anyone can tell you there are far more efficient ways of putting holes in stuff than to use a focused beam of light. Every year we come closer to the idea of the "laser pistol" becoming a reality, with the lasers becoming more powerful, and the power supplies becoming smaller and more efficient. Some day we will probably come up with a laser pistol that is the size of say a .45 automatic and that will give a person a similar amount of firepower. Nerds will love them, and I'm sure plenty of civilians will pack them or keep them as home defense weapons for the 'wow' factor. In the end though they will wind up being no better than any other "hand cannon" and probably inferior to whatever the heck caliber they have managed to build a gun capable of letting humans deal with the recoil for, never mind what kind of ammo will be able to be cheaply manufactured. I'd imagine it would be somewhere along the lines of autofiring computer guided ultra-sub tactical nuclear munitions by the time lasers are up to the level of a .45 though.
I guess the point is that I'm talking about practical technologies. I suppose if somehow a technology became practical people would automatically start paying more attention to it. Right now I'm sure America has any kind of Japan "let's build a giant super robot" projects under tight suerveillance, and probably think it's one half cool (watching all the same stuff we do), and one half pure lulz. If it ever goes anywhere we'll just take all their research, shut them down, and that will be that.
Truthfully though since tanks and the like will ALWAYS be better for reasons guys like David Drake have gone off about, chances are we might just let them build them if it makes them happy because it actually gimps them with a less effective force (which is kind of fitting with the spirit of the SSDF).
This is getting off subject, but also consider that even shows like "Gasaraki" which made pretensions of realism seemed to think that modern tanks and such remain stationary and fire their main guns and such very slowly. In reality just from what we've seen on TV (which probably understates the technology for security reasons) modern tanks can whip along at like 120 MPH (who cares if it hits something, it's a bloody tank), and pretty much autofire their guns with multiple types of aiming systems. Some goober in mech is not going to come along and launch some smoke bombs and suddenly be invisible to the tanks which will calmly sit there while some dude futiley tries to hand load shells and manually rotate a turret.
But, I guess their "non-existant" military is using it now as those implementations are not present. Military Research ALWAYS comes first.
ASIMO(made by a car company, just like Mitsubishi made submarines and bombs during the war) is doing quite well. They are also inventing an optical/digital cloak. They demoed that too.
Mount Fuji is the world's 2nd largest, underground airport/testing facility(since 1944 when they launched those rocket suicide jets from it "Okas?"). Area 51 being the first. So they have plenty of spaces to hide robotic advancements. I say, 1 cute Terminator with GPS-hacking, strength and speed of a small tank and optical camo = 1 army.
Japan does not like anyone. They don't even like the Ryukyu islanders...and they are Japanese...they have a very small-minded culture.
At least we have fitted our nuclear warheads with mostly Neutron tips. WW3 is back on the table. \o/
I for one, welcome our new robot/alien/mutant/Communist/Capitalist/Led Zeppelin/female? Overlords.[/quote]
Hmmm, not quite sure if I agree with you on a lot of that. I am not familiar with the "Exo Glove" you mentioned (which sounds like an expensive alternative to "The Jaws Of Life"), but it does not surprise me that someone made a toy like that.
I do not consider Exo-Skeletons to be anything all that special anymore, people have been using them underwater for a while now. Heck, I think it was back in the 1980s that they had James Bond fight one (in "For Your Eyes Only" I think), they also used them in movies like "The Abyss" and "Deep Star Six". They had a real one out when I went to Disney World to show it off along with some other undewater deep sea robotics.
I do not think Japan is really unique in that area, though as I said they have made some interesting advances in robotics. I do not think anything they have is really high on the threat level, and I'm pretty sure anything they are developing at places like Mt. Fuji is under our constant suerveillance one way or another.
The problem with the whole concept of Exoskeletons and "Powered Armor" is that by definition once you advance in technology to the point where you could give one man the power of a modern tank, you could give an actual tank a bajillion times the power of a modern tank. There is no point in encasing your soldier in steel armor if all of the weapons on the current battlefield blow through that like it wasn't there anyway, and the mounted weapons are really ineffective against anything but other troops to begin with. Sure it makes for cool science fantasy, but in the end there are a lot of logical problems as it usually relies on the rest of the battlefield not progressing in proportion to the man based armor for whatever reason.
I also find the idea of "super robots" and "battle mechs" entertaining but in the end I'm not buying that they are going to squash equally advanced tanks (which are a more functional design) especially seeing as if you can make a "Gundam" fly there is no reason why your going to keep your tanks on treads, you can just make Grav Tanks.
I guess guys like David Drake kind of sold me on their vision of the modern battlefield.
I myself have heard about Japan wanting to employ military robotics, but if they are developing such things I figure it's generally ignored due to implasibility. Even if they succeed it's just a more complicated way of achieving the same, or inferior results to something else.
It's sort of like the whole idea of the "Laser Gun". People have been intrigued by the idea of putting holes in people and things with handheld lasers since very early science fiction novels. Anyone can tell you there are far more efficient ways of putting holes in stuff than to use a focused beam of light. Every year we come closer to the idea of the "laser pistol" becoming a reality, with the lasers becoming more powerful, and the power supplies becoming smaller and more efficient. Some day we will probably come up with a laser pistol that is the size of say a .45 automatic and that will give a person a similar amount of firepower. Nerds will love them, and I'm sure plenty of civilians will pack them or keep them as home defense weapons for the 'wow' factor. In the end though they will wind up being no better than any other "hand cannon" and probably inferior to whatever the heck caliber they have managed to build a gun capable of letting humans deal with the recoil for, never mind what kind of ammo will be able to be cheaply manufactured. I'd imagine it would be somewhere along the lines of autofiring computer guided ultra-sub tactical nuclear munitions by the time lasers are up to the level of a .45 though.
I guess the point is that I'm talking about practical technologies. I suppose if somehow a technology became practical people would automatically start paying more attention to it. Right now I'm sure America has any kind of Japan "let's build a giant super robot" projects under tight suerveillance, and probably think it's one half cool (watching all the same stuff we do), and one half pure lulz. If it ever goes anywhere we'll just take all their research, shut them down, and that will be that.
Truthfully though since tanks and the like will ALWAYS be better for reasons guys like David Drake have gone off about, chances are we might just let them build them if it makes them happy because it actually gimps them with a less effective force (which is kind of fitting with the spirit of the SSDF).
This is getting off subject, but also consider that even shows like "Gasaraki" which made pretensions of realism seemed to think that modern tanks and such remain stationary and fire their main guns and such very slowly. In reality just from what we've seen on TV (which probably understates the technology for security reasons) modern tanks can whip along at like 120 MPH (who cares if it hits something, it's a bloody tank), and pretty much autofire their guns with multiple types of aiming systems. Some goober in mech is not going to come along and launch some smoke bombs and suddenly be invisible to the tanks which will calmly sit there while some dude futiley tries to hand load shells and manually rotate a turret.