Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

["Alan MacHett" <machett AT ibiblio.org>]

...as in the sort of pipe-dream technology ideas one scribbles onto a napkin.

Everyone has their "wouldn't it be cool if..." ideas.  Popular culture has
displayed them regularly for decades and great minds since the Greeks and
Romans have been dreaming them as well.

What determines that a fantasy idea becomes a reality?  Think of Dick
Tracey from decades ago; what made it and what stayed in comicbookland? 
What from current sci-fi can we hope to see in the coming years?

I ask because a spread in the 17Nov issue of Time magazine contains an
entry about the Power Assist Suite, of the Kanagawa Institute of
Technology, Japan; it's a robotic exoskeleton.  Ever since the Aliens(II)
Powerloader I've believed in that "wouldn't it be cool if..." idea. 
Apparantly DARPA liked the idea, too, ... enough so to grant $50 million
to it's research:

Prof. Begins Research on Futuristic Exoskeleton, Jan. 30, 2002
http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=7517

DARPA slide presentation, 1999, (see p.18)
http://www.darpa.mil/darpatech99/Presentations/dsopdf/dsowax2.pdf

U. Washington: Biorobotics Lab - Research: Wearable Robotics - Exoskeleton
http://brl.ee.washington.edu/Research_Active/Exoskeleton/Exoskeleton_Index.html

TechTV, Oct. 16, 2002
http://www.techtv.com/news/scitech/story/0,24195,3371422,00.html

NASA concept (cheap sketch)
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/xa/advanced/MechAug.JPG


--Alan