— pretty much quoting the whole article 😉
Robo-Legs – New York Times

For people who see Cameron Clapp for the first time, he is an object of wonderment: a young man walking and talking tall on shiny robotic legs.

“I make it look easy,” said Mr. Clapp, who is 19 and still shows flickers of the cocky skater boy he was before he became what he calls “a severe case.”

Mr. Clapp lost both his legs above the knee and his right arm just short of his shoulder after falling onto train tracks almost five years ago near his home in Grover Beach, Calif. After years of rehabilitation and trying a series of prosthetics, each more technologically sophisticated than the last, he finally found his legs.

“I do have a lot of motivation and self-esteem,” Mr. Clapp said, “but I might look at myself differently if technology was not on my side.” In the last few years, technology has definitely been on his side, in the form of the C-Leg. Introduced by Otto Bock HealthCare, a German company that makes advanced prosthetics, the C-Leg combines computer technology with hydraulics. It literally does the walking for the walker.

Blazing advancements, including lightweight composite materials, keener sensors and tiny programmable microprocessors are restoring remarkable degrees of mobility to amputees, said William Hanson, president of Liberating Technologies Inc., a company in Holliston, Mass., that specializes in developing and distributing advanced (rather than the more conventional kind) prosthetic arms and hands. Statistics show that more than twice as many men as women are amputees.

But something more subtle, and possibly far reaching, is also occurring, some technologists say.

The line that has long separated human beings from the machines that assist them is blurring as complex technologies become a visible part of people who depend upon them. Unlike pacemakers and fabricated heart valves that are embedded in the body, these technologies are, so to speak, worn on their users’ sleeves.

Increasingly, amputees, especially young men like Mr. Clapp, and soldiers who have lost limbs in Afghanistan and Iraq, are choosing not to hide their prosthetics under clothing as previous generations did. Instead, some of the estimated 1.2 million amputees in the United States proudly polish and decorate their electronic limbs for all to see.
..
Over the years, prosthetics like the C-Leg and the Boston Digital Arm have benefited from the explosion of improving technologies for personal computers and cellphones. For example, Mr. Hanson of Liberating Technologies said that smaller and more powerful microprocessors and rechargeable batteries have helped his company make electronic limbs more reliable.
..
But young men, especially those who have been using personal electronics since childhood, are comfortable recharging their limbs’ batteries in public and plugging their prosthetics into their computers to adjust the software, Mr. Hanson said.

“I love my Terminator legs,” said Nick Springer, 20, a student at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla., who lost his arms and legs to meningococcal meningitis, a rare and often deadly bacterial disease that he got at summer camp when he was 14.

Like Mr. Clapp, Mr. Springer uses the battery-powered C-Leg system. Mr. Springer, who is broad-shouldered and athletic, said he had never been shy about his legs, which rely on sensors to monitor how the leg is being placed on terrain and microprocessors in the knees to control how the limbs’ hydraulic system creates a natural step.

With hard work, Mr. Springer said, his legs, which can cost more than $40,000 each, helped give him back his mobility. He wore a kilt to his high school prom in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., and even donned Dr. Martens boots on his artificial legs to attend rock concerts with friends.

He recently went to the movies with his father, Gary, an entertainment publicist in New York, to see “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.”

“The entire time I’m watching the thing, I’m thinking cool but bull,” Nick Springer said, referring to the scene in which the character Anakin Skywalker, who lost his arms and legs in light-saber battles, is rebuilt with fully functional prosthetics to become the infamous Darth Vader.

“We have a long way to go before we get anything like that,” he said. “But look how far humanity has come in the past decade. Who knows? The hardest part is getting the ball rolling.

“We pretty much got it rolling,” Nick Springer continued, referring to the steady technological improvements as well as people’s growing acceptance of his legs. He recalled attending a party where the lithium-ion batteries for his legs went dead.

“I usually get 30 hours out of them before I have to charge them again,” he said. “But I didn’t charge them up the day before.”

When his legs ran out of power, he said he spent most of his time sitting on a couch talking to people with his legs plugged into an electrical outlet nearby. “It was fine,” he said, adding that no one seemed to care.

Michael Chorost, a science writer and consultant, said that the public has grown accustomed to seeing people carrying around personal technology. “It started with the Walkman in the 1980’s,” he said.

Mr. Chorost, who is 40 and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, suffered his own disability by losing his hearing four years ago. Soon after, he had a device known as a cochlear implant placed surgically under the skin behind his ear to restore his hearing. The device requires him to wear a microphone on the side of his head.

In a book he wrote, “Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human,” Mr. Chorost recounts how he went to an electronics store to buy a cable to plug his compact disc player into his implant’s sound processor. When he explained to the salesclerk that he had a “bionic ear” and showed how he planned to jack the music directly into his head, the clerk nodded and turned back to the cables on the wall. Mr. Chorost wrote, “Maybe he has customers walking into the store all the time asking how to plug things into themselves.”

Mr. Clapp, who has his own Web site, cameronclapp.com, is a contract patient advocate for the Hanger Orthopedic Group, a company in Bethesda, Md., that provides prosthetic services and makes sockets that attach to artificial legs. This month, Mr. Clapp was at a Hanger clinic in Oklahoma City to have new leg sockets built and to compete with other amputees in the Endeavor Games, an annual sporting event for athletes with disabilities.

Mr. Clapp is described as an agile runner and swimmer. It helps that he has three sets of legs: one for walking, one for running and one for swimming. He said he knew that practically everywhere he went, he drew attention. “I might not look too beautiful,” he said. “But I give it my hardest.”

[link to flikr site of Clapp]