Showing posts with label Accelerometer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Accelerometer. Show all posts

September 24, 2013

Cancel Out Those Tremors


This is a wonderful new product available from Lift Labs.

It is a spoon for people that suffer from hand tremors, like those from Parkinson's Disease. 

With tremors, a person has trouble lifting the spoon to their mouth and doing it without spilling.

With Lifeware, the tremors are said to be reduced in trials by 70%!

The spoon is battery operated and it has sensors for the tremors and performs countermeasures to stabilize itself. 

It does this with technology including an accelerometer and microprocessor to actively cancel out the tremor. 

In the future, additional attachments are forecasted, including a folk, keyholder, and more. 

The special device was made possible through a grant under the NIH Small Business Innovation Research Program.

An awesome advance for Parkinson's patients to be more self-sufficient and live with dignity despite such a debilitating illness.

Thank you to the engineers at Life Labs (and to the NIH) for bringing this stabilization technology to those who really can benefit from it.
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November 3, 2012

Sign Language That Really Talks


There are over 40 million deaf or hearing disabled people in the world.

Many of these people suffer from not being understood by others and feel isolated. 

Four Ukranian graduate students have created the answer for them called Enable Talk--these gloves translate sign langauge into sound. 

The gloves have sensors including compass, gyroscope, and accelerometer that captures the wearer's sign language. This is then transmitted via Bluetooth to an smartphone app that matches the sign pattens to those stored (and which can also be programmed/customized) and translates it into words and sounds. 

Enable Talk gloves won the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2012 student technology competition, and was named as one of Time Magazine's Top 25 Best Innovations of 2012. 

For $175 these gloves are an amazing value for the hearing impaired who just wants to be communicate and be understood by others. 

This is a great advance for the disabled, and I'd like to see the next iteration where the gloves have the translation and voice mechanism and speakers built in, so the smartphone and app isn't even needed any longer--then the communication is all in the gloves--simple, clean, and convenient! ;-)

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August 17, 2012

Realizing Bubble Boy

Cool innovation out of Sweden, as an alternative to regular bike helmets, there is now the Hovding

An "invisible" nylon air bag helmet that is worn stylishly around the neck and inflates only when the it detects a pending accident.

The wearable device has a rechargeable accelerometer and gyroscope for sensing accidents, and it can inflate with helium in just a tenth of a second. 

It also has a "black box" that records that last 10 seconds of the accident, so that investigators can analyze what happened.

The helmet shell for around the neck comes in a variety of styles and colors, and it costs between $450 and $600 dollars, but  is not usable after a single inflatable event. 

While many people don't want to wear crash helmets because they are either unattractive or uncomfortable, this new inflatable helmet provides style and comfort, and most importantly head protection. 

The developers see other potential uses for skiing, horseback riding, epileptics, and the elderly.

I wonder about future applications for even more extreme sports and activities like motocycle riding, sky diving, and even race-car driving--people could do the things they enjoy, more naturally, without the clunky helmet, but still have the protection they need.

Also, I believe that the inflatable helmet has potential to be expanded into a more complete body guard package--like an invisible protective shield ready and waiting to be deployed all around a person in case of an accident, attack, or other disaster scenario. 

Like the idea of Bubble Boy, who lives in a sterilized dome to protect him because of a compromised immune system, people of all types may one day be able to have a protective bubble that keeps them out of harm's way. 

Technology, such as the smartphone, is moving from mobile to wearable, and high-tech helmets too have the potential for a big lift--stay tuned for yours. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Geoffery Kehrig)

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October 22, 2011

Keeping All Our Balls In The Air

This is the throwable panoramic ball camera.

It has 36 cameras and when thrown in the air, takes 360-degree pictures of it's surroundings as it reaches it's apex (i.e. the highest point in the air).

You can see behind you, above you, all around you even things that you didn't even know where there.

And you can pan, zoom, and scroll to get the precise view you want.

The pictures are amazing--instantly, you have a birds eye view, but only better, because even a bird can't see behind it's head, but you can.

The implications for artists, photo hobbyists, and outdoor enthusiasts is one thing, but then there are the possibilities for improved surveillance and reconnaissance for homeland and national security.

Watch for camera balls to be used not only for throwing in beautiful and/or dangerous environments, but also for posting at security checkpoints, critical infrastructure, transportation hubs and more.

One question I have is, whether the camera ball become a one-time use device, if you don't catch it and it ends up smashing into the ground.

Situational awareness is about to get a real bounce out of this one.

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