Overheard In Providence » bionics

Guess what I heard

eerac — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:27:01 +0000

Australian performance artist Stelios Arcadious has implanted ear-shaped cartilage in his arm.

According to boing boing (and all these photos) the ear was grown in a lab using his own cells and an ear-shaped mold. A similar technique was demonstrated back in 1997 when cow cells were used to grow an ear on the back of a mouse.

Ultimately Stelios hopes to implant a wireless microphone in his third ear so we can all have a listen. My question is, how unusual will this be considered 10 years from now?

iMazing

eerac — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:50:51 +0000

Two posts in one day? A disturbing trend to be sure, but I couldn’t resist linking to this Wired post highlighting iWalk’s new propulsive prosthetic foot. After last week’s i-Limb post, I can’t help notice a trend. Perhaps Steven Colbert’s iEye prediction isn’t far off.

The $18,000 dollar man

eerac — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:54:35 +0000

There are some major advances taking place in bionics these days (in part due to the Iraq war). Most recently, there’s the i-Limb (I hope Apple doesn’t sue), featured in this cnet ~~article~~ slideshow. The i-Limb costs about $18,000 dollars and is much more human-like than other prosthetic hands. For one it has 5 fingers, each with their own motor. It also features some very impressive artificial skin.

On page 6 of the article, the CEO of Touch Bionics (makers of the i-Limb) places their customers into two categories: those who want their prosthetic hand to look as normal as possible and those who want it to look like it came out of the movie Terminator. Perhaps that’s why in addition to highlighting the hand’s optional artificial skin, Touch Bionic’s website has a video of someone using the i-Limb to load a shotgun.

The future is on its way!