IT engineers to learn more than just programming

Yes, Its true: future IT engineers are to be taught social skills with the programming skills in a new course at Potsdam University in Germany. Apparently, its thought that Engineers do not have a good social life as they are not able to get along with non-technical people. Hence this masters course at this university aims at teaching IT engineers some interpersonal skills so that they are successful in their private as well as their social life.
whats even more interesting is that the course includes teaching things like how to send flirtatious text messages and emails (I remember being detained for doing that once in high school ;-). although, this course also include important things like body language, public speaking, stress management and presentation skills. So far over 400 students have already enrolled for this course. Read the article here.

Another interesting article i came across was about this wearable robotic "exoskeleton".
See picture below:


This device, which can be worn by any human, can help in lifting heavy things and also people disabled by stroke or degenerative diseases. Last time i remember seeing something like this was in the movie Spider-man-2. Dr. Octopus's character had something similar:-

Now this device is actually being developed at Jack Baskin School of Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz. The most challenging part of this device, according to researchers, is the human-machine interface. If successful the Brain would be able to control the machine with the same signals as it does are very own muscles. WOW
who knows, we might see a real Dr. Octopus pretty soon, Not so evil though :-).
Read the article about this research (Medical robotics) here.