Lifeboat Foundation

It’s electric! A startup emerged from stealth this week with grand plans to pioneer a new form of neurotech dubbed “electric medicine.”

Elemind’s approach centers on artificial intelligence-powered algorithms that are trained to continuously analyze neurological activity collected by a noninvasive wearable device, then to deliver through the wearable bursts of neurostimulation that are uniquely tailored to those real-time brain wave readings.

Massachusetts startup Elemind has raised $12 million to read brainwaves and treat people for sleep disorders, long-term pain, tremors, and to speed up learning rates. Clinical trials show the company’s wearable device can accelerate sleep up to 70% faster, reduce tremors in patients with physiological shaking up to 50%, and boost learning rates.

“We use a wearable neurotech device to read the brain in real time and intercept it in real time with something called neurostimulation,” Elemind co-founder and CEO Meredith Perry told me on a recent TechFirst podcast. “That’s using sound or light or vibration or electricity to stimulate the brain. And when we do that, we can actually guide the brain precisely, and that leads to a behavior change. So like a drug, but much smarter and without the side effects.”

SNAP’s 144 gold-coated silicon microneedles, each shorter than a hundredth of an inch, can bypass pain receptors and ensure comfort during prolonged wear.

Engineers from Korea and the United States have developed a wearable patch, which is slated to have the potential to further technologies related to human-machine interaction and healthcare.

Like a Band-Aid, the stretchable microneedle adhesive patch (SNAP) sticks to your skin and detects signals from muscles. In tests, people used it to control robotic exoskeletons better. These machines copy and improve the strength of human muscles and bones.

Continue reading “Researchers unveil wearable patch for enhanced robotic exoskeleton control” »

Soft robots, medical devices, and wearable devices are now common in our daily routines. Researchers at KAIST have created a fluid switch that employs ionic polymer artificial muscles. This switch functions with ultra-low power while generating a force 34 times its own weight. Fluid switches are designed to direct the flow of fluid, guiding it in specific directions to initiate different movements.

KAIST (President Kwang-Hyung Lee) announced on the 4th of January that a research team under Professor IlKwon Oh from the Department of Mechanical Engineering has developed a soft fluidic switch that operates at ultra-low voltage and can be used in narrow spaces.

Advanced proposition

The iCub3 robot avatar system has been designed to facilitate the embodiment of humanoid robots by human operators, encompassing aspects such as locomotion, manipulation, voice, and facial expressions with comprehensive sensory feedback, including visual, auditory, haptic, weight, and touch modalities.

Continue reading “Italian team’s iCub3 avatar tech set to enhance human-robot connection” »

A research team led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has developed “supramolecular ink,” a new technology for use in OLED (organic light-emitting diode) displays or other electronic devices. Made of inexpensive, Earth-abundant elements instead of costly scarce metals, supramolecular ink could enable more affordable and environmentally sustainable flat-panel screens and electronic devices.

“By replacing precious metals with Earth-abundant materials, our supramolecular ink technology could be a game changer for the OLED display industry,” said principal investigator Peidong Yang, a faculty senior scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and professor of chemistry and materials science and engineering at UC Berkeley.

“What’s even more exciting is that the technology could also extend its reach to organic printable films for the fabrication of wearable devices as well as luminescent art and sculpture,” he added.

A non-volatile version could be on its way, too.

By transferring laser-induced graphene to a hydrogel film at cryogenic temperatures, stretchable graphene–hydrogel interfaces can be created for application in wearable and implantable electronics.

Its AI model can predict the accumulation of amyloid-beta protein, a major Alzheimer’s biomarker.