Lifeboat Foundation

A research team at the University of Tokyo is exploring the advancement of wearable robotics. Jizai Arms is a system of supernumerary robotic limbs. Up to six of these arms can be worn and controlled by the user. The limbs allow the wearer to attach, detach, replace or edit the arms. This was designed to enable social interaction between wearers to support human beings acting with robots and AIs while maintaining a sense of self-awareness and widening the possibility of human actions.

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The rapid development of wearable electronics requires its energy supply part to be flexible, wearable, integratable and sustainable. However, some of the energy supply units cannot meet these requirements at the same time, and there is also a capacity limitation of the energy storage units, and the development of sustainable wearable self-charging power supplies is crucial. Here, we report a wearable sustainable energy harvesting-storage hybrid self-charging power textile. The power textile consists of a coaxial fiber-shaped polylactic acid/reduced graphene oxide/polypyrrole (PLA-rGO-PPy) triboelectric nanogenerator (fiber-TENG) that can harvest low-frequency and irregular energy during human motion as a power generation unit, and a novel coaxial fiber-shaped supercapacitor (fiber-SC) prepared by functionalized loading of a wet-spinning graphene oxide fiber as an energy storage unit. The fiber-TENG is flexible, knittable, wearable and adaptable for integration with various portable electronics. The coaxial fiber-SC has high volumetric energy density and good cycling stability. The fiber-TENG and fiber-SC are flexible yarn structures for wearable continuous human movement energy harvesting and storage as on-body self-charging power systems, with light-weight, ease of preparation, great portability and wide applicability. The integrated power textile can provide an efficient route for sustainable working of wearable electronics.

Humane, the top-secret tech startup founded by ex-Apple vets Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, just showed off the first demo for its projector-based wearable at a TED talk. Axios’ Ina Fried broke the news, and Inverse has seen a recording of the full TED talk given by Chaudhri.

Humane founder and ex-Apple designer Imran Chaudhri shared the first look at the company’s AI-powered wearable projector. Here’s an exclusive first glimpse of Humane’s screen-less iPhone killer in action and details on its many functions including making and receiving phone calls, summarizing notifications, and translating your voice in real-time.

A team of researchers has developed a new method for controlling lower limb exoskeletons using deep reinforcement learning. The method entitled, “Robust walking control of a lower limb rehabilitation exoskeleton coupled with a musculoskeletal model via deep reinforcement learning,” published in the Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, enables more robust and natural walking control for users of lower limb exoskeletons.

While advances in wearable robotics have helped restore mobility for people with lower limb impairments, current control methods for exoskeletons are limited in their ability to provide natural and intuitive movements for users. This can compromise balance and contribute to user fatigue and discomfort. Few studies have focused on the development of robust controllers that can optimize the user’s experience in terms of safety and independence.

Existing exoskeletons for lower limb rehabilitation employ a variety of technologies to help the user maintain balance, including special crutches and sensors, according to co-author Ghaith Androwis, Ph.D., senior research scientist in the Center for Mobility and Rehabilitation Engineering Research at Kessler Foundation and director of the Center’s Rehabilitation Robotics and Research Laboratory. Exoskeletons that operate without such helpers allow more independent walking, but at the cost of added weight and slow walking speed.

Nanoscientists have developed a wearable textile that can convert body movement into useable electricity and even store that energy. The fabric potentially has a wide range of applications from medical monitoring to assisting athletes and their coaches in tracking their performance, as well as smart displays on clothing.

The research team responsible for the textile describe how it works in a paper published in Nano Research Energy.

From smart watches to cordless headphones, people already have access to a wide range of wearable electronic devices. A range of health, sport and activity monitors are now integrated into smartphones.

Recent advancements in the field of electronics have enabled the creation of smaller and increasingly sophisticated devices, including wearable technologies, biosensors, medical implants, and soft robots. Most of these technologies are based on stretchy materials with electronic properties.

While material scientists have already introduced a wide range of flexible materials that could be used to create electronics, many of these materials are fragile and can be easily damaged. As damage to materials can result in their failure, while also compromising the overall functioning of the system they are integrated in, several existing soft and conductive materials can end up being unreliable and unsuitable for large-scale implementations.

Researchers at Harbin University of Science and Technology in China recently developed a new conductive and self-healing hydrogel that could be used to create flexible sensors for wearables, robots or other devices. This material and its composition was outlined in the Journal of Science: Advanced Materials and Devices.

A study, published in PNAS Nexus, describes a fabric that can be modulated between two different states to stabilize radiative heat loss and keep the wearer comfortable across a range of temperatures.

Po-Chun Hsu, Jie Yin, and colleagues designed a fabric made of a layered semi-solid electrochemical cell deployed on nylon cut in a kirigami pattern to allow it to stretch and move with the wearer’s body. Modern clothes are made with a variety of insulating or breathable fabrics, but each fabric offers only one thermal mode, determined by the fabric’s emissivity: the rate at which it emits thermal energy.

The active material in the fabric can be electrically switched between two states—a transmissive dielectric state and a lossy metallic state—each with different emissivity. The fabric can thus keep the wearer comfortable by adjusting how much body heat is retained and how much is radiated away. A user would feel the same skin temperature whether the external temperature was 22.0°C (71.6°F) or 17.1°C (62.8°F). The authors call this fabric a “wearable variable-emittance device,” or WeaVE, and have configured it to be controlled with a smartphone app.

We’ve been waxing lyrical (and critical) about Apple’s Vision Pro here at TechCrunch this week – but, of course, there are other things happening in the world of wearable tech, as well. Sol Reader raised a $5 million seed round with a headset that doesn’t promise to do more. In fact, it is trying to do just the opposite: Focus your attention on just the book at hand. Or book on the face, as it were.

“I’m excited to see Apple’s demonstration of the future of general AR/VR for the masses. However, even if it’s eventually affordable and in a much smaller form factor, we’re still left with the haunting question: Do I really need more time with my smart devices,” said Ben Chelf, CEO at Sol. “At Sol, we’re less concerned with spatial computing or augmented and virtual realities and more interested in how our personal devices can encourage us to spend our time wisely. We are building the Sol Reader specifically for a single important use case — reading. And while Big Tech surely will improve specs and reduce cost over time, we can now provide a time-well-spent option at 10% of the cost of Apple’s Vision.”

The device is simple: It slips over your eyes like a pair of glasses and blocks all distractions while reading. Even as I’m typing that, I’m sensing some sadness: I have wanted this product to exist for many years – I was basically raised by books, and lost my ability to focus on reading over the past few years. Something broke in me during the pandemic – I was checking my phone every 10 seconds to see what Trump had done now and how close we were to a COVID-19-powered abyss. Suffice it to say, my mental health wasn’t at its finest – and I can’t praise the idea of Sol Reader enough. The idea of being able to set a timer and put a book on my face is extremely attractive to me.

“Apple today unveiled Apple Vision Pro, a revolutionary spatial computer that seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world, while allowing users to stay present and connected to others. Vision Pro creates an infinite canvas for apps that scales beyond the boundaries of a traditional display and introduces a fully three-dimensional user interface controlled by the most natural and intuitive inputs possible — a user’s eyes, hands, and voice.”

CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today unveiled Apple Vision Pro, a revolutionary spatial computer that seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world, while allowing users to stay present and connected to others. Vision Pro creates an infinite canvas for apps that scales beyond the boundaries of a traditional display and introduces a fully three-dimensional user interface controlled by the most natural and intuitive inputs possible — a user’s eyes, hands, and voice. Featuring visionOS, the world’s first spatial operating system, Vision Pro lets users interact with digital content in a way that feels like it is physically present in their space. The breakthrough design of Vision Pro features an ultra-high-resolution display system that packs 23 million pixels across two displays, and custom Apple silicon in a unique dual-chip design to ensure every experience feels like it’s taking place in front of the user’s eyes in real time.

“Today marks the beginning of a new era for computing,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Just as the Mac introduced us to personal computing, and iPhone introduced us to mobile computing, Apple Vision Pro introduces us to spatial computing. Built upon decades of Apple innovation, Vision Pro is years ahead and unlike anything created before — with a revolutionary new input system and thousands of groundbreaking innovations. It unlocks incredible experiences for our users and exciting new opportunities for our developers.”

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