A team of scientists at Johns Hopkins, behind much of Darpa’s prosthetic progress thus far, have received a $34.5 million contract from the agency to manage the next stages of the project. Researchers will test the Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) on a human. The test subject’s thoughts will control the arm, which “offers 22 degrees of motion, including independent movement of each finger,” provides feedback that essentially restores a sense of touch, and weighs around 9 pounds. That’s about the same weight as a human arm.
The prosthetic will rely on micro-arrays, implanted into the brain, that record signals and transmit them to the device. It’s a similar design to that of the freaky monkey mind-control experiments, which have been ongoing at the University of Pittsburgh since at least 2004.
Within two years, Johns Hopkins scientists plan to test the prosthetic in five patients. And those researchers, alongside a Darpa-funded consortium from Caltech, University of Pittsburgh, University of Utah and the University of Chicago, also hope to expand prosthetic abilities to incorporate pressure and touch.
The movie Minority Report features one of the most discussed and influential user interfaces ever shown on the silver screen. Using a pair of special gloves, Tom Cruise’s character can navigate and manipulate a vast array of digital images and information using intuitive gestures and movements. As we discussed back in February, that interface is real. The concept was developed for the film by John Underkoffler of MIT’s Media Lab who has gone on to recreate it as a marketable system. Known as ‘g-speak’ the revolutionary interface is under development by Underkoffler’s company Oblong. It was debuted at the TED conference this year and now we finally have access to that video. Watch Underkoffler casually demonstrate what might very well be the future of human computer interactions.
A novel way to interface with your devices, Skinput:
I can’t see this getting mass adoption; as some people have already commented, you’d probably have an arm covered in bruises. But if there isn’t an electronic artist using this live on stage to control their show soon I’ll be sorely disappointed.
His Ghost Detector is a musical instrument built by ‘hacking’ any electronic device that generates sound. Random lengths of wire are connected to randomly chosen places on its circuit board. The wires receive radiation of all kinds, and the results are translated into sound. The device becomes a “synthesizer”. It is unstable, responsive to slight influences and what it synthesizes can therefore not be controlled. A larger Ghost Detector randomly interconnects several such individual devices. Positioned all over a wall at HMKV, the network of “ghost detectors” read the “auras” of the audience. Rumour has it that the bodies or even the moods of visitors walking around the installation might affect the sonic output.
The lush, white carpet is interwoven with conductive thread and transforms anyone who stands and walks across the carpet into a human antenna.
The carpet picks up the radio waves which your body receives and makes them “hearable.” When walking on the carpet you can tune it to a certain frequency, similar to the tuner of a radio.
After relying on a pacemaker for 20 years, Carol Kasyjanski has become the first American recipient of a wireless pacemaker that allows her doctor to monitor her health from afar — over the Internet.
When Kasyjanski heads to St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, New York, for a routine check-up, about 90 percent of the work has already been done because her doctor logged into his computer and learned most of what he needed to know about his patient.
Three weeks ago Kasyjanski, 61, became the first person in the United States to be implanted with a pacemaker with a wireless home monitoring system that transmits critical information to her doctor via the Internet.
Kasyjanski, who has suffered from a severe heart condition for more than 20 years, says the device has given her renewed confidence and a new lease of life, because if her pacemaker were to malfunction or stop working, only immediate action would save her life.
“Years ago the problem was with my lead, it was nicked, and until I collapsed no one knew what the problem was, no tests would show what the problem was until I passed out,” she told Reuters Television.
Dr. Steven Greenberg, the director of St. Francis’ Arrhythmia and Pacemaker Center, said the new technology helps him better treat his patients and will likely become the new standard in pacemakers.
He said the server and the remote monitor communicate at least once a day to download all the relevant information and alert the doctor and patient if there is anything unusual.
“If there is anything abnormal, and we have a very intricate system set up, it will literally call the physician responsible at two in the morning if need be,” he said.
Link and words via reuters.com. Interesting that the article mentions nothing about any security measures in place.
MIT Professor Missy Cummings (a former F-18 Hornet Navy Pilot), and her team of 30 students and undergrads, have successfully demonstrated how an iPhone could be used to control an Unmanned Area Vehicle, or UAV.
As part of their work at MIT’s Humans and Automation Lab (HAL, heh), the team thought about ways to improve on the suitcase-sized controller that soldiers must currently lug around to control hand-thrown Raven UAVs.
The iPhone app they developed sends GPS coordinates to the craft, which then in turn can send photos and video back to the iPhone.
The story here is that CNN is reporting this. Or as reader Paul Luthy wrote “It seems significant that a major network news source is treating this as science news…”
So not much progress has been made since we posted about this in Jan ‘08; but more people are aware of it now. Thanks CNN!
Via Digital Urban comes word of this heavily branded zombie shooter for NVIDIA’s new hand-held. The tech is impressive, but why the hell do you have to shoot Skittles?
Students at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany are developing a pair of interactive data eyeglasses that can project an image onto the retina from an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) micro-display, making the image appear as if it’s a meter in front of the wearer. While similar headwear only throws up a static image, the students are working on eye-tracking technology that allows wearers, with just the movement of the eyeball, to scroll through information or move elements about.
The system works by monitoring electroencephalography – or EEG – which is the electrical activity produced on the scalp by the movement of neurons within the brain.
The user of a BCI wears a cap, which is studded with electrodes and connected to a computer. The electrodes detect the electrical signals caused by thoughts.
Mr Wilson’s Twitter set-up contains an onscreen alphabet. The letters flash in turn, and when the letter that the user wants to type flashes, the system detects a spike in their brain activity, and selects that letter.
Researchers combined a mobile projector with a webcam and mobile phone to create a device that draws information from the environment. The wearer can also interact with the sixth sense device using touch gestures on nearly any surface.
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The sixth sense gadget’s projector can turn anything into a touch screen and captures input via the webcam. The wearer can draw a circle on his or her wrist and the device will project a digital clock face.
The gadget can also take pictures of the wearer’s surrounding with very simple prompts. All the user has to do is frame out an area and the webcam will snap a frame.
MIT’s latest device can also provide additional information about a wearer’s surroundings. The gadget recognizes products on store shelves and can provide product and price comparison information.
The device can also retrieve flight information simply by viewing a plane ticket to let the wearer know about delays. When reading magazine articles, the device automatically pulls up related information from the Web.
The sixth sense device was cobbled together from common parts costing just $300. At the heart of the device is a smartphone that uses an Internet connection to retrieve information.
In addition, the device turns nearly any surface into a touch screen. If nothing else is available, the wearer can even project a screen onto a hand.
It’s never too early to get the children to move things with their minds:
Mattel’s keeping mum about the technology behind its Mindflex game, but – according to several online sources – the game requires the user to wear a headset equipped with sensors that measure brainwave activity.
This ‘activity’ is then used to guide a small foam ball through an obstacle course of hoops, which can be customised by the gamer.
It’s still unclear how the ball is kept in the air throughout its journey around the obstacle course. Some reports have claimed that a fan’s used, whilst other sources have said that Epoc-esque technology is the key to Mindflex’s power.
What we do know is that Mindflex will be paraded by Mattel at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, which is about to kick-off in Las Vegas.
Apparently, the Wrao 920AV will be “the first to actually function as sunglasses or portable video eyewear. It’ll combine virtual reality (VR) capabilities as well as augmented reality (AR) features.” Holy crap that is awesome.
A team of scientists at Johns Hopkins, behind much of Darpa’s prosthetic progress thus far, have received a $34.5 million contract from the agency to manage the next stages of the project. Researchers will test the Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) on a human. The test subject’s thoughts will control the arm, which “offers 22 degrees of motion, including independent movement of each finger,” provides feedback that essentially restores a sense of touch, and weighs around 9 pounds. That’s about the same weight as a human arm.
