Lifeboat Foundation

An international team led by researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has developed a universal connector to assemble stretchable devices simply and quickly, in a ‘Lego-like’ manner.

Stretchable devices including soft robots and wearable healthcare devices are assembled using several different modules with different material characteristics — some soft, some rigid, and some encapsulated.

However, the commercial pastes (glue), currently used to connect the modules often either fail to transmit mechanical and electrical signals reliably when deformed or break easily.

Science fiction films love to show off huge leaps in technology. The latest Avatar movie features autonomous, spider-like robots that can build a whole city within weeks. There are space ships that can carry frozen passengers lightyears away from Earth. In James Cameron’s imagination, we can download our memories and then upload them into newly baked bodies. All this wildly advanced tech is controlled through touch-activated, transparent, monochrome and often blue holograms. Just like a thousand other futuristic interfaces in Hollywood.

When we are shown a glimpse of the far future through science fiction films, there are omnipresent voice assistants, otherworldly wearables, and a whole lot of holograms. For whatever reason these holograms are almost always blue, floating above desks and visible to anyone who might stroll by. This formula for futuristic UI has always baffled me, because as cool as it looks, it doesn’t seem super practical. And yet, Hollywood seems to have an obsession with imagining future worlds washed in blue light.

Continue reading “Why all of Hollywood UI looks the same” »

Waverly Labs, the company behind wearables focused on translation, has launched an app called Forum that helps users translate and transcribe audio in real time. The company says the solution is useful for lecturers, auditoriums and theaters. What’s more, it is also compatible with video calling apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet.

Forum is available on iOS and accessible through a browser. The app’s Android version will launch by the end of this quarter. It supports 20 languages and 42 dialects, including Arabic, Dutch, English, Hindi, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. Users can join an existing session or create one and share a QR code with others.

Users have the option to switch to a new language in the middle of the session to get text and audio translation. There is also a profanity filter to block words that users don’t want to see in a chat. Forum also has hold-to-talk and pause-to-translate modes for a conversation that doesn’t need instantaneous conversation.

A patch this small and worn for 24 hours may replace the use of ultrasound equipment to do diagnostic imaging of the heart.

The patch records images and data related to heart function for 24 hours and could replace ultrasound technology in current use.

Dr. Cody reveals private conversations about BCI and experience at CES2023.

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Continue reading “A Billionaire and Brain Computer Interface: Behind the Scenes at Consumer Electronic Show 2023” »

A multi-disciplinary team of researchers has developed a way to monitor the progression of movement disorders using motion capture technology and AI.

In two ground-breaking studies, published in Nature Medicine, a cross-disciplinary team of AI and clinical researchers have shown that by combining human movement data gathered from wearable tech with a powerful new medical AI technology they are able to identify clear movement patterns, predict future disease progression and significantly increase the efficiency of clinical trials in two very different rare disorders, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and Friedreich’s ataxia (FA).

DMD and FA are rare, degenerative, genetic diseases that affect movement and eventually lead to paralysis. There are currently no cures for either disease, but researchers hope that these results will significantly speed up the search for new treatments.

Summary: Combining new wearable technology and artificial intelligence, researchers are better able to track motion and monitor the progression of movement disorders.

Source: Imperial College London.

A multi-disciplinary team of researchers has developed a way to monitor the progression of movement disorders using motion capture technology and AI.

The University of Singapore has invented a VR Glove that allows you to feel objects in the metaverse! The technology includes pressurized fingertips and restricted motion that mimics the real-life sensation of picking up objects. The goal is to assist medical professionals to practice in Virtual Reality (but we can see how these would make for some pretty incredible immersive gameplay). Production will begin over the next few years.

The VR glove is an important advancement in wearable tech, as it is a fully untethered haptic system. With this super fast feedback loop, the glove encounters the metaverse in what is essentially real-time. So, that means minimal to no lag for users. Additionally, the gloves are lighter and more affordable than the gloves that are currently on the market. This makes The National University of Singapore’s HaptGlove all the more impressive as a piece of wearable tech.

The glove was developed by The National University of Singapore for use with trainees at the National University Health System. Specifically, users will be able to use the technology to grasp surgical devices or check the pulse of a patient. Furthermore, the haptic system inside the glove should resemble the feeling of an object on your fingertips, providing real-time feedback. This is an important moment for the medical field that could have serious impact, as VR becomes a testing ground for future health tech. It’s interesting to note this development alongside other trends, like the push towards Web5.

Firefighting may look vastly different in the future thanks to intelligent fire suits and masks developed by multiple research institutions in China.

Researchers published results showing breathable electrodes woven into fabric used in fire suits have proven to be stable at temperatures over 520ºC. At these temperatures, the fabric is found to be essentially non-combustible with high rates of thermal protection time.

The study was published on January 12, 2023 in Nano Research.