The future is a strange thing. We’re always looking forward to it - or dreading it, worrying about it, dreaming about it… Sometimes we spend so much instance contemplating the future we really pay precious little attention to the here and now. Then a surprising thing happens - in the blink of an eye we realize we’re already smack dab in the middle of the future. Today…

Amit Goffer was paralyzed in an accident in 1997. That both landed him in a wheelchair and set him on a mission. He founded Argo Medical Technologies, an Israeli high-tech company, and got to work developing a sci-fi age solution to paralysis.

The conclusion is

the ReWalk, a human exoskeleton with a remote control and motorized leg supports. The ReWalk controls are carried in a backpack, which plus houses the rechargeable batteries. The user selects from a number of settings, including stand, sit, walk, and climb.

Then they’re off. Walking in a manner that has previously been impossible for them. The user must have full use of their arms, as crutches are still needed to maintain balance.

It’s a fabulous device, now in clinical trials, and slated for release to the public in 2010. The cost is estimated at $20,000.

To read more about the ReWalk, see that from Reuters. To read the full details of ReWalk, see that from Argo Medical.