[video]
Graphene has been found to be a supercapacitor; a nearly unbreakable touchscreen; and now an uber-efficient filter for creating cheap, clean water from seawater. This is pretty amazing considering graphene was only discovered about 10 years ago; and its discovery didn’t win the Nobel Prize until 2010.
Now that you can make Graphene using a standard DVD drive and etch designs that act as electrodes with a CO2 laser things are going to get really interesting.
Fujitsu’s futuristic cane does so much more than help you walk
We’d always thought the cane was a relatively mature technology — it’s very good at helping you walk around, and really can’t be improved. We were wrong. Hidden against a bright white wall inside Fujitsu’s booth at MWC was the Next Generation Cane, which is more or less what you’d get if you brought a bunch of science fiction writers into a room and asked them how to make Cane 2.0.
This is impressive. Click through for video of a cane that can guide its owner to a destination, monitor heart rate, and let family members know where it is.
[video]
jstn:
Thinking about getting implanted collamer lenses. They insert a rolled up lens through a tiny incision behind your iris and it actually unfolds inside your eye, without cutting or reshaping your cornea like LASIK.
“The ICL can be removed and replaced if vision changes substantially after the procedure.”
[video]
[video]
[video]
Time: Best Inventions of the Year 2012
Four Ukrainian students have created gloves that allow speech- and hearing-impaired people to communicate with those who don’t use or understand sign language. The gloves are equipped with sensors that recognize sign language and translate it into text on a smart phone, which then converts the text to spoken words.
How is it possible that these could be only $75?
[video]
Luke Skywalker’s robotic hand is finally a reality:
The Bebionic3 is a myoelectric prosthetic hand that uses residual neuro-muscular signals from your muscles to operate a number of precise functions. To see the hand in action is to immediately recall the scene in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in which Luke Skywalker examines his new robotic hand after losing it to Darth Vader. The hand is about as realistic and functional as the one in the film, with the ability to write with pen, delicately hold glasses and bottles, and even crack eggs.
Click through for some videos.
[video]
Trackable suitcase automatically follows its owner
Holidays are supposed to be relaxing, but with all of the organization involved they can quickly become more hassle than they’re worth. We’ve already seen Ogomo save stressed travelers from worrying about the little things by delivering travel-size toiletries to the hotel, and now the Bluetooth-enabled hop! robotic suitcase from Ideactionary could make lost luggage a thing of the past. READ MORE…
(via 61cygni)
Click your heels and GPS-enabled shoes guide you home
(Photo: Dominic Wilcox)
A British artist has created a pair of shoes that, like Dorothy’s ruby slippers in “The Wizard of Oz,” take you home with a click of the heels. But unlike Dorothy, you’ll still have to walk — while the shoes point the way with GPS and a clever LED array.
(via poptech)
Meet Baxter, a New Kind of Industrial Robot
(via mattlehrer)
