Watch: These gravity-defying backpacks might allow us to leap effortlessly across traffic
Is augmented jumping the future of walking?
Who wouldn’t like to leap over the traffic instead of waiting endlessly to cross the road? Or effortlessly dunk a basketball into the net? Or just fly up to the first-floor balcony instead of going inside the building and taking the lift. (Maybe that last one is a bit of an exaggeration.)
All it needs is the ability to defy gravity briefly. A group of students from the University of Tokyo is working on a new kind of wearable device – a hover bag designed with a system called Lunavity. Its function: augment the human capability of jumping.
The video above explains how it will work, and what users can do with it.