A former jockey who was left paralyzed from the waist down after a horse riding accident was able to walk again thanks to a cutting-edge piece of robotic tech: a $100,000 ReWalk Personal exoskeleton.
When one of its small parts malfunctioned, however, the entire device stopped working. Desperate to gain his mobility back, he reached out to the manufacturer, Lifeward, for repairs. But it turned him away, claiming his exoskeleton was too old, *404 media *reports.
“After 371,091 steps my exoskeleton is being retired after 10 years of unbelievable physical therapy,” Michael Straight posted on Facebook earlier this month. “The reasons why it has stopped is a pathetic excuse for a bad company to try and make more money.”
Prosthetics that are no longer supported, should be fully open sourced.And the copyright should immediately expire.
Support your products, or let others do it.
Tbh, I didn’t even think prosthetics could be proprietary. It’s kinda ghoulish to make it so they can be “outdated” when needing minor stuff repaired.