In what looks like the beginning of Tobey Maguire’s second Spider-Man film, a Japanese robotics company – Jizai – has created “Arms”, a kind of backpack that can give the wearer extra robotic arms. You can see the presentation video above in all its glory.
“The system was designed to enable social interaction between multiple users, such as an exchange of arms, and explore possible interactions between digital cyborgs in a cyborg society“, reads the website. We have no trouble imagining that in the future these arms could become a real point of reference for patients with limited mobility (like exoskeletons).
The team of researchers, he said, was inspired by a 1963 story written by Nobel prize-winning author Yasunari Kawabata, where a girl decides to lend her suitor an arm for the night. “This novel is obviously a work of fiction, yet, half a century since its writing, emerging technologies of human-machine integration have begun to allow us to physically experience Kawabata’s world.“
It is not yet clear to us the use of a similar robot, but the prototype presented by the company seems to be the beginning of the rise of increasingly useful similar devices. “From our role-playing sessions, we found that our bodies could accurately sense the attachment/detachment of the arms, and we especially felt a strong impact when detaching or reducing the number of robotic arms worn“, finally say the researchers.
In short, in the future, it will not be difficult to find people with extra robotic limbs.
