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Category: wearables – Page 66

The age of the cyborg may be closer than we think. Rapidly improving medical robotics, wearables, and implants means many humans are already part machine, and this trend is only likely to continue.

It is most noticeable in the field of medical prosthetics where high-performance titanium and carbon fiber replacements for limbs have become commonplace. The use of “blades” by Paralympians has even raised questions over whether they actually offer an advantage over biological limbs.

For decades, myoelectric prosthetics—powered artificial limbs that read electrical signals from the muscles to allow the user to control the device—have provided patients with mechanical replacements for lost hands.

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Many rain jackets have zippers at the armpits that, when opened, let out perspiration and funk that would otherwise stay trapped inside. But researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a prototype of a wearable that vents itself automatically in response to sweat—and it does so using bacteria.

Wen Wang, the lead author of a new study about biohybrid wearables in the journal Science Advances, says that the garment with bacteria-triggered vents represents just a stepping stone on their way to creating shirts that do something even better: produce a pleasant smell when you sweat.

To make the prototype garment, the researchers experimented with different structures of latex and bacteria, says Wang, a bioengineer and former research scientist at MIT’s Media Lab and the university’s department of chemical engineering. One such configuration involved just two layers: bacteria on one side, and latex on the other. But what worked best for creating the vented wearable was coating latex on both sides with a type of bacteria called B. subtilis.

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(Tech Xplore)—Researchers at the University of Bristol have figured out how you can whisper to someone up to 30 feet away. Their approach managed to translate facial expression into ultrasonic words.

David Lumb in Engadget said the researchers built a wearable ; its components are a worn on the forehead or chest and electrodes placed on the lips and jaw.

The only “snag,” as New Scientist called it, is fairly substantial. How could one be a stellar secret message-passing agent in a crowd when staring people would find it odd that person is wearing a speaker on his head and walking around with electrodes around his mouth.

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A pressure sensor printed directly on a hand is a step toward new biomedical devices, “on the fly” wearable technology, and more…

(Inside Science) — Wearable technology may soon be at your fingertips — literally. Researchers have developed a pressure sensor that can be 3D printed directly on your hand. The device, sensitive enough to feel a beating pulse, is made from soft, stretchy silicone that conforms to the curves of your fingertip.

It’s a step toward a more seamless integration of human and machine, said Michael McAlpine, a materials scientist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. His team didn’t print the device on a real hand yet — just an artificial one. “But,” he said, “it sets the stage for future work in 3D printing electronic devices directly on the body.”

Someday, that could mean technology evocative of the cyborgs and bionic humans of science fiction. In the nearer term, 3D printed gadgets on and in the body could aid medical treatment, health monitoring and surgery.

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The “Watchsense” prototype uses a small depth camera attached to the arm, mimicking a depth camera on a smartwatch. It could make it easy to type, or in a music program, volume could be increased by simply raising a finger. (credit: Srinath Sridhar et al.)

If you wear a smartwatch, you know how limiting it is to type it on or otherwise operate it. Now European researchers have developed an input method that uses a depth camera (similar to the Kinect game controller) to track fingertip touch and location on the back of the hand or in mid-air, allowing for precision control.

The researchers have created a prototype called “WatchSense,” worn on the user’s arm. It captures the movements of the thumb and index finger on the back of the hand or in the space above it. It would also work with smartphones, smart TVs, and virtual-reality or augmented reality devices, explains Srinath Sridhar, a researcher in the Graphics, Vision and Video group at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics.

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Another futurist, Dave Evans, founder and CTO of Silicon Valley stealth startup Stringify, gave his thoughts about Kurzweil’s nanobot idea in an interview with James Bedsole on February.

Evans explained that he thinks such a merging of technology and biology isn’t at all farfetched. In fact, he described three stages as to how this will occur: the wearable phase (where we are today), the embeddable phase (where we’re headed, with neural implants and such), and the replaceable phase.

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Toyota is introducing a wearable robotic leg brace designed to help partially paralyzed people walk.

The Welwalk WW-1000 system is made up of a motorized mechanical frame that fits on a person’s leg from the knee down. The patients can practice walking wearing the robotic device on a special treadmill that can support their weight.

Toyota Motor Corp. demonstrated the equipment for reporters at its Tokyo headquarters on Wednesday.

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With the exception of activity trackers and smartwatches, it’s fair to say that wearable technology hasn’t really taken off just yet, but if Google and Levi’s have their way, that could soon be about to change.

The two companies are teaming up to release their first co-designed product – the world’s first ‘smart’ trucker jacket (yep, that’s a thing now). It looks for the most part like a regular Levi’s Commuter jacket, but with a conductive fabric called “interactive denim” and a Bluetooth device that attaches to the sleeve.

It was back in 2015 that Google first announced its plan to make connected clothing like this – dubbed Project Jacquard – and the Levi’s jacket will be the first garment incorporating the technology.

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“Yep, transforming health care and telepathy, those are the items on her to-do list. Jepsen plans to achieve both goals with a cheap wearable device that her engineers are now tinkering with in the lab. And then there’s the side benefit of reinvigorating the tired consumer electronics industry, which Jepsen thinks is due for the next big thing.

Jepsen was at SXSW to give a talk about Openwater, her new startup. While the company is still conducting R&D to decide on its first products, Jepsen feels the need to speak out now about what she’s building and how she thinks her technology could radically change society. She wants to give people fair warning and time to think about what’s coming. “I know it seems outlandish to be talking about telepathy, but it’s completely solid physics and mathematical principles—it’s in reach in the next three years,” she says.

Plus, she’s sick of stealth mode. “I haven’t been able to to talk about what I’ve been doing for five and half years while I was at Google and Facebook, and I don’t think secrecy is useful,” she says. She left Facebook in August, and in September she filed patents for her Openwater technology, which she expects to be issued any day now.

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