Lifeboat Foundation

In Korea, scientists are turning to better ways for improving our screen time, and this means 3D printing something most of us know little about: quantum dots. Focusing on refining the wonders of virtual reality and other electronic displays even further, researchers from the Nano Hybrid Technology Research Center of Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI), a government-funded research institute under National Research Council of Science & Technology (NST) of the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), have created nanophotonic 3D printing technology for screens. Meant to be used with virtual reality, as well as TVs, smartphones, and wearables, high resolution is achieved due to a 3D layout expanding the density and quality of the pixels.

Led by Dr. Jaeyeon Pyo and Dr. Seung Kwon Seol, the team has published the results of their research and development in “3D-Printed Quantum Dot Nanopixels.” While pixels are produced to represent data in many electronics, conventionally they are created with 2D patterning. To overcome limitations in brightness and resolution, the scientists elevated this previously strained technology to the next level with 3D printed quantum dots to be contained within polymer nanowires.

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system that recognizes hand gestures by combining skin-like electronics with computer vision.

The recognition of human hand gestures by AI systems has been a valuable development over the last decade and has been adopted in high-precision surgical robots, health monitoring equipment and in gaming systems.

AI gesture recognition systems that were initially visual-only have been improved upon by integrating inputs from wearable sensors, an approach known as ‘data fusion’. The wearable sensors recreate the skin’s sensing ability, one of which is known as ‘somatosensory’.

Purdue University innovators are working on inventions to use micro-chip technology in implantable devices and other wearable products such as smart watches to improve biomedical devices, including those used to monitor people with glaucoma and heart disease.

The Purdue team developed a fully implantable radio-frequency transmitter chip for wireless sensor nodes and biomedical devices. The research is published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II. The transmitter chip consumes lowest amount of energy per digital bit published to date.

The transmitter works in a similar fashion to communication technology in mobile phones and smart watches, but the Purdue transmitter has an unprecedented level of miniaturization and low-energy consumption that it can be implanted into an eye to monitor pressure for a glaucoma patient or into another part of the body to measure data related to heart functions.

A team of researchers led by Cunjiang Yu, Bill D. Cook Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston, has developed a new form of electronics known as “drawn-on-skin electronics,” allowing multifunctional sensors and circuits to be drawn on the skin with an ink pen.

The advance, the researchers report in Nature Communications, allows for the collection of more precise, motion artifact-free health data, solving the long-standing problem of collecting precise biological data through a wearable device when the subject is in motion.

The imprecision may not be important when your FitBit registers 4,000 steps instead of 4,200, but sensors designed to check heart function, temperature and other physical signals must be accurate if they are to be used for diagnostics and treatment.

Researchers in Boston have designed a sleep wearable called Dormio to explore how to improve creativity in our sleep.

Device not only helps record dream reports, but also guides dreams toward particular themes.

The study of dreams has entered the modern era in exciting ways, and researchers from MIT and other institutions have created a community dedicated to advancing the field, lending it legitimacy and expanding further research opportunities.

In a new paper, researchers from the Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces group introduce a novel method called “Targeted Dream Incubation” (TDI). This protocol, implemented through an app in conjunction with a wearable sleep-tracking sensor device, not only helps record dream reports, but also guides dreams toward particular themes by repeating targeted information at sleep onset, thereby enabling incorporation of this information into dream content. The TDI method and accompanying technology serve as tools for controlled experimentation in dream study, widening avenues for research into how dreams impact emotion, creativity, memory, and beyond.

Sony’s Reon Pocket is shipping now in Japan. It’s a portable air conditioner that you wear inside special T-shirts. But does it actually work?

An invention may turn one of the most widely used materials for biomedical applications into wearable devices to help monitor heart health.

A team from Purdue University developed self-powered wearable triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-based contact layers for monitoring cardiovascular health. TENGs help conserve mechanical energy and turn it into power.

The Purdue team’s work is published in the journal Advanced Materials.

No one wants to walk with a walker, but age has a way of making people compromise on their quality of life. The team behind Superflex, which spun out of SRI International in May, thinks there could be another way.

The company is building wearable robotic suits, plus other types of clothing, that can make it easier for soldiers to carry heavy loads or for elderly or disabled people to perform basic tasks. A current prototype is a soft suit that fits over most of the body. It delivers a jolt of supporting power to the legs, arms, or torso exactly when needed to reduce the burden of a load or correct for the body’s shortcomings.

A walker is a “very cost-effective” solution for people with limited mobility, but “it completely disempowers, removes dignity, removes freedom, and causes a whole host of other psychological problems,” SRI Ventures president Manish Kothari says. “Superflex’s goal is to remove all of those areas that cause psychological-type encumbrances and, ultimately, redignify the individual.”