Skip to main content

Tourists are renting robotic legs to climb up a mountain

For many vacationers, a trip might involve a challenging climb up a mountain for a spot of exercise and to enjoy the amazing views from the top, the sense of satisfaction enhanced by all of the effort expended to reach the peak.

But for some tourists taking on Mount Tai in Shandong, China, the required exertion seems like a waste of … well … energy. Especially when a pair of robotic legs can do the job instead.

Recommended Videos

It’s true. Tourism officials at Mount Tai recently came up with the idea of offering tourists a robotic exoskeleton that lets your leg muscles take a back seat, CNN reported.

The 5,000-foot (1,525-meter) mountain has 7,000 steps and — thanks largely to viral TikTok videos showing exhausted climbers on all fours or simply in a heap on the ground — has earned a reputation for being a tricky ascent.

This prompted tourism officials to offer the exoskeleton for less confident climbers, including older folks. On the first day of the rental service last month, more than 200 people paid around 70 yuan (about $9.50) to hire the robotic legs.

The contraption was created by Kenqing Technology, a Shenzhen-based tech company, in partnership with Taishan Cultural Tourism Group. Weighing a mere 4 pounds  (1.8 kilograms), the device fits around a person’s waist and thighs. With a battery life of approximately five hours, the robotic legs are designed to transform your walk, putting something of a spring in your step.

One tourist who used the robotic legs told Xinhua News Agency that they “really work,” adding that it “felt like someone was pulling me up the hill.”

Another user said that while it definitely made the climb easier, he “felt a bit clumsy” after removing the robotic legs and walking under his own power again.

These particular robotic legs are currently in beta testing but could hit the mass market as soon as next month.

Besides helping low-energy folks to complete a climb, technology like this can be useful for older people who have trouble walking, or in particular kinds of jobs, such as those that require a lot of lower-body movement.

A growing number of tech firms are developing robotic legs, and designs are becoming much sleeker and less bulkier than before. You never know, with a little more refinement and a bit of added power, elderly climbers may soon be bounding all the way to the top of Mount Tai as if they were teenagers again. Now that we’d like to see.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Asus Ascent GX10 packs supercomputer power into a tiny box
asus ascent gx10 mini supercomputer announced 1

Asus has introduced the Ascent GX10, a mini supercomputer designed for AI and machine learning workloads. The system is powered by Nvidia’s GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip, making it a notable addition to the AI computing market.

The Ascent GX10 features Nvidia’s GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip, which integrates a 20-core Arm-based CPU with a Blackwell GPU. This setup delivers up to 1,000 TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second) of AI performance, making it suitable for edge computing and AI model training.

Read more
Intel releases XeSS 2.0 developer tools, but keeps code under lock and key
Three main components of Intel's XeSS 2 upscaling

Intel has finally released the XeSS 2.0 Software Development Kit (SDK) to aid game development through upscaling, frame generation, and latency reduction technologies. The SDK is now accessible via Intel's GitHub repository, providing developers with pre-built tools for integrating XeSS into their projects.

Intel expanded its suite of XeSS technologies last year when it unveiled its budget segment GPUs, the Arc B580 and B570. The XeSS 2.0 SDK introduces three main components: XeSS-SR for AI-driven super resolution, XeSS-FG for frame generation, and XeLL for low-latency improvements. These advancements position XeSS 2.0 as a competitor to Nvidia’s DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and AMD’s FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution), offering similar AI-powered enhancements to image quality and performance. Intel has also updated the XeSS inspector tool to support Vulkan and DirectX 11, making it easier for developers to optimize game performance across multiple rendering APIs.

Read more
Research suggests the VR headset heyday could be behind us
A man wears an Apple Vision Pro headset.

The latest market research has not been kind to VR headsets, and the Apple Vision Pro is the headset that suffered the biggest drop in market share. According to a new market update, the global VR market declined by 12% year-over-year in 2024, showing that the adoption of these headsets is slowing instead of picking up pace.

The updates come from Counterpoint, a research firm. According to its latest findings, people just aren't that into VR headsets anymore. Despite the way the tech has evolved in the last few years, shipments of VR headsets are dropping instead of rising.

Read more