Open source prosthetics movement

"Quinn Norton's written a stupendous piece for Wired News on a new open-source prosthetics movement started by a Iraq-war veteran upper-arm amputee named Jonathan Kuniholm, who has vowed to produce a prosthesis "that's so cool, somebody with two arms would want an amputation to get one."

The Open Prosthetics Project

Kuniholm was an engineer before his Marine reserve unit was sent to Iraq, where he lost his arm to an IED. His engineer/design partners in North Carolina worked with him to improve the nonfunctional smooth plastic prosthesis he was issued by the VA, making substantial improvements over the basic design. Then they decided to open up the designs to help other amputees. The site has grown into a collection of prosthesis hacks that includes mounting a Spider Man fishing rod on a child's prosthetic arm.

All this week, Garry Trudeau has been running a Doonesbury series about BD, the football jock/veteran amputee just back from Iraq, who goes to a tattoo parlor motorcycle shop with his prosthetic leg to get the man there to "pimp his gimp."

Founded last year, the nonprofit Open Prosthetics Project applies the ethical and intellectual property foundation of open-source software to the task of building better artificial limbs. The project releases its experimental designs to its website in the public domain, free for anyone to use, forever. Anyone can download the STL files, tinker with them in CAD software, and submit them to a rapid manufacturer, such as a prototyping 3-D printing company.

This lets anyone turn out a customized prosthetic device without incurring tens of thousands of dollars in production costs. A user with a few hundred dollars to spend can be holding the physical reality within a week, though the post processing would still require some expertise...

Open Prosthetics' experimental design incorporates both modes in one hook, using a pin/spring/cam set-up controlled by the intensity of the wearer's shrug: A limited shrug momentarily opens or closes the hook, just like the traditional design, while a full shrug acts as a toggle, reversing the hook from open to closed, or visa versa, and leaving it there until the next actuation.

They've built and rebuilt two versions of this positional hook, and they have a working prototype of the entire limb made from LEGO Technic parts. (This video demonstrates the strength difference of the two modes in picking up a small object.)"

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71797-0.html


boingboing.net

GPS

"The Global Positioning System, usually called GPS, is the only fully-functional satellite navigation system. A constellation of more than two dozen GPS satellites broadcasts precise timing signals by radio, allowing any GPS receiver (abbreviated to GPSr) to accurately determine its location (longitude, latitude, and altitude) in any weather, day or night, anywhere on Earth."


wikipedia.org

Wordnet

trackable

adj : capable of being traced or tracked; "a traceable riverbed"; "the traceable course of an ancient wall"

Wearable Computer - definition

Wearable computers are computers that are worn on the body. They have been applied to areas such as behavioral modeling, health monitoring systems, information technologies and media development. Government organizations, military, and health professionals have all incorporated wearable computers into their daily operations. Wearable computers are especially useful for applications that require computational support while the user's hands, voice, eyes or attention are actively engaged with the physical environment.

wikipedia.org

World of WearableArt (WoW)

http://www.worldofwearableart.com/index.html

Wearable Computing - MIT

http://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/

"To date, personal computers have not lived up to their name. Most machines sit on the desk and interact with their owners for only a small fraction of the day. Smaller and faster notebook computers have made mobility less of an issue, but the same staid user paradigm persists. Wearable computing hopes to shatter this myth of how a computer should be used. A person's computer should be worn, much as eyeglasses or clothing are worn, and interact with the user based on the context of the situation. With heads-up displays, unobtrusive input devices, personal wireless local area networks, and a host of other context sensing and communication tools, the wearable computer can act as an intelligent assistant, whether it be through a Remembrance Agent, augmented reality, or intellectual collectives."

Remember Ring heats up on your anniversary

"The "Remember Ring" is programmed to breifly heat up to 120 deg F every hour on the hour on a specific date -- such as your anniversary. It powers itself with a "micro thermopile" that turns heat from your hand into stored electricity that runs its internal clock and the heater."

boingboing.net

Umbrella shows a Flickr stream on the inside surfaces

"A project in the handle of the Pileus umbrella paints the brolly's interior with a series of wirelessly-fetched Flickr photos while a camera in its tip lets you document your day.

The system is constructed by the Pileus Umbrella and the Pileus WebService. User can see and take a photo and video with the PileusUmbrella. User can hand on own experience in rainy day to next user with an umbrella type photoset. User Connects the Grip with the Screen, then the Grip reads the Screen’s ID and login to own Pileus Account. When user takes photos or videos, Pileus WebService evaluates media-type of data and uploads it to Flickr or YouTube, and then set a tag by screen ID. In addition, user twists the grip, it searchs contents at Flickr and YouTube by tag of screen ID, and displays contents in order."

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