Man has tried to communicate with his canine companions through commands, gestures, and best guesses, for centuries, but now, a team of designers from the Nordic Society for Invention and Discovery have created “No More Woof”. After being placed on a dog’s head, it reads signals representative of mental states – fatigue, hunger, excitement, etc. – sends that information to a microcomputer where it’s processed and then translates it into English through a speaker. Continue reading for more.
3. Robotic Arm
LifeHand 2, developed by a team of Italian and Swiss researchers, is the world’s first artificial hand that restores a sense of touch to patients with a missing limb. It’s wired up to electrodes implanted into the nerves at the point of amputation for easy control using no more than a thought. Researchers installed the prosthetic onto the arm of 36-year-old Dennis Aabo Sorensen, a Danish man who lost his hand in a fireworks accident. His hand was equipped with sensors in each finger that would detect information about objects that were being touched. Even when blindfolded and wearing earplugs, he was able to distinguish between various objects, including a mandarin orange, baseball, bottles, wood and even fabric.
2. Bionic Leg
Ossur has created a thought-controlled bionic leg that involves surgically implanting 5 mm by 3 mm myoelectric sensors (IMES) into a person’s residual muscle tissue to measure and interpret the signals traveling between its nerve-endings and the brain. Leg movement is triggered by a connected receiver, and the process is so efficient that it allows a patient to perform actions subconsciously. “As soon as I put my foot on, it took me about 10 minutes to get control of it. I could stand up and just walk away. Come back, sit down, use my muscles to move my foot in the position I wanted to use it. It was like you couldn’t believe the feeling when you were moving your ankle. It was really strange. I couldn’t explain it. It was like, I was moving it with my muscles, there was nobody else doing it, the foot was not doing it, I was doing it, so it was really strange and overwhelming,” said Gummi Olafson, one of the two amputees who has been testing the bionic legs for the past 12 months.
1. Skateboard
There are electric skateboards, and then the “The Board of Imagination,” which is brainwave-controlled. That’s right, just put on an Emotiv EPOCH headset, and you’re ready to go, topping out at an impressive 32 miles per hour. “It detects your brainwaves, it actually figures out where you want to go. You imagine yourself being there and it takes you forward,” says Phil Wheat, Manager of Chaotic Moon Labs.
