Thursday, Nov. 11, 2010
Iron Man Suit
If you're a kid, here's one more reason to be a geek: when you grow up, you get to build indescribably cool stuff. Take the XOS 2, developed by Salt Lake City–based Raytheon Sarcos. An honest-to-goodness Iron Man suit, the XOS 2 allows even its least muscular wearer to lift 200-lb. weights without breaking a sweat and, as seen in demonstration videos that have gone viral, punch through slabs of wood that a person would be at pains to even saw through ordinarily. Raytheon hopes to roll out the XOS 2 first to the military, allowing soldiers in theaters of operation to lift heavy ordnance or other equipment with ease. The affordable home model, alas, is still the stuff of geek dreams.