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PISCES Exoskeletons Turn Every Solider Into Aquaman
Posted by Sean Fallon at 1:45 AM on September 19, 2008
Apparently the military has been working with West Florida's Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) for several years trying to develop an underwater exoskeleton that would improve a soldier's speed and endurance underwater. Much like early pioneers of flight, IHMC has looked to nature to provide answers. So far, the project known as Performance Improving Self Contained Exoskeleton for Swimming ("PISCES") has investigated how dolphins, sea turtles and penguins move through the water. Not surprisingly, the results have been...a little odd.
Hammacher Schlemmer's Digital Camera Swim Mask integrates an underwater digital camera into a swim mask--two things that have belonged together ever since Man decided that Woman should wear little to no clothing when they're in the water. The on-board 5-megapixel camera goes down to 15 feet and can take up to 30 pictures in its 16MB memory. You can expand that with a microSD card (no size limitation specified) in order to record more than 52 seconds of video as well. There's an LED inside the mask that tells you which mode you're in, but the whole thing requires two AAA batteries to operate. It's only US$99, and can be used in snorkeling or just at the pool. You can bet your arse we're testing one soon. [
Boy that Michael Phelps is fast. No one can argue it, he can dominate in almost any style of swim and possesses one of the best dolphin kicks in the world. That is, one of the best kicks aside from some random guy using the Lunocet monofin. Because while Phelps is able to swim at an inhuman 8 kilometres per hour, the average swimmer using the carbon fibre Lunocet will routinely hit about 12.9kph. Is it too late for us to book our tickets to Beijing?
One of the 
Speedo's controversial 
There's clearly something going on with the Swiss and hot water: first "extreme jacuzzi-ing" on 
Officials from the International Swimming Federation (aka FINA) want to speak with Speedo next week about their high tech swimsuit. Seems the athletes who use the swimsuit are breaking all sorts of records and, with the Olympics coming up, the FINA doesn't want anyone getting an unfair advantage. Unfortunately for FINA, the only real resolutions appear to be a general ban, which Speedo would protest, or to allow every country to wear it in violation of their existing equipment contracts. The last option is probably the most appealing: FINA brings back the old suits and those swim team shaving parties of yesteryear. [
Alain Bernard of France broke a record last week when he swam the 100m freestyle in 47.60 seconds at the European Swimming Championships. At the same time, underwater photographer Wolfgang Rattay broke another far geekier, and therefore far more important, record of his own using a voyeuristic remote controlled underwater camera rig.
This is the swimmer's equivalent to the pedometer, a length counter that makes me think of those old Walkman Sports. Stick the Lap Track on one end of the pool wall and it will show you all sorts of useful information as you power up and down the pool lane - best lap time, average lap time, average speed, total distance and calories burned. It only goes up to 50 lengths, but couch potato that I am, 50 lengths seems a lot of strokes to me. It runs on two AAA batteries and costs $60. 
