Kottke found this horrifying six second video by Paglo, a Vine user from Cholula, in Mexico. It looks like a bunch of hairs, some ridiculous abandoned mustache on a plastic container, but wait until he touches it with his finger and try no to recoil and/or scream with what happens next:
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Medicine is amazing but sometimes it can look like the darkest corners of Stephen King’s brain. This is exactly the case: Chinese doctors saved a man’s severed hand by attaching it to his ankle, creating some impossible anatomy in the process.
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Prosthetic hands are expensive. I mean in the range of tens of thousands of dollars. Otherwise everyone would have one – at least those who need them. Well, that was true before 3D printing came along anyway. Now we can make all kinds of things at a fraction of the cost. Like prosthetic hands.
It looks like 12-year old Leon McCarthy of Marblehead, Massachusetts was born at just the right time to take advantage of this technology. He was born without fingers on his left hand and didn’t have a functional prosthetic replacement until his father, Paul McCarthy, found some online instructions for a design that could be built with a 3D printer.
Fortunately Leon’s school had a $2,500 3D printer. Using less than $10 worth of materials, his dad built Leon a useful mechanical hand. When he moves his wrist forward, the fingers clench. When he moves it back, the fingers open. While it’s not the most aesthetically pleasing thing, it is functional, and will definitely improve Leon’s quality of life. We have not even begun to explore the possibilities of 3D printing.
[Joe Carter via Neatorama]
Some have called Willow Garage’s health into question lately, but the company may have a minor hit on its hands — if through an unexpected channel. The firm has seen a strong enough response to its Velo robot gripper that it’s mulling an early sale of the device this fall, at an educational price somewhere between $500 and $1,000. Whether or not that happens depends on feedback, however. Willow Garage is both offering notification sign-ups and running a feature survey — if you need a different interface or better performance, now’s the time to speak up. There’s no guarantee of receiving a Velo when the company might ship just 50 to 100 of the advance units, but you won’t get one if you don’t ask, will you?
Filed under: Robots
Via: IEEE Spectrum
Source: Willow Garage (Google Docs)
While you could put your smartphone in your pants pocket, it might be cramped in there. The guys at Generate are here to offer you a hand.
Designed by inink, the Hand T-shirt is exactly what it sounds like – it holds onto your iPhone or other similarly-sized mobile gadget. It’s been emblazoned with a clever hand and arm graphic so it looks like the hand is holding your device. The built-in transparent PVC pocket will hold on to anything that’ll fit inside.
You can get the Hand T-Shirt over at Generate for $59(USD).
[via FRESH]
DARPA is showing off a new robotic hand that is advanced enough to perform very delicate, precise maneuvers. That’s impressive by itself, but the main thing here is that it costs just 1/16th the price of previous models.
This inexpensive robot hand, developed by iRobot, is capable of performing very delicate, precise tasks, like picking up a driver’s license laying flat on a table for instance. How about a three-fingered robot hand picking up a door key and then using it to unlock a standard door? That’s right. Now robots can enter your home uninvited. Well, soon enough anyway. Variants of the three-fingered hand mechanism can also lift heavy weights, and are extremely resilient.
This is just one of the new robot hands that was developed for DARPA’s ARM-H track, in which some new robotic hands were designed to be produced for just $3,000 each in batches of 1,000 units. The old price for similar units was around $50,000. This is one small hand for a single robot, but a giant hand for robot-kind.
[via geek]
Okay, so you know your hand? Five fingers. Assorted grasping and carrying shenanigans. Right. So it turns out that your brain is constantly using sensory information to check in and make sure it still knows what’s your hand and what’s not. And it can be fooled. More »
The advancements made in prosthetics over the years has been remarkable, but Touch Bionics’ latest creation may very well be the most advanced prosthetic we’ve ever seen to date.
Touch Bionics’ i-limb already received such notable improvements as Bluetooth connectivity and upgraded fingers, but today the company is announcing it now offers a powered thumb rotation which adds some dexterity to the prosthetic. That’s not all as the i-limb also has an “bioism” iOS application that can give the wearer access to 24 different grip patterns, as well as included diagnostic and training modes.
Smartphone control isn’t the only way the i-limb’s users can interact with it as it also relies on muscle signals in order to shift itself into pre-set patterns, allowing the wearer to perform a number of actions as a result. Considering how advanced Touch Bionics’ i-limb has become over the years, we wouldn’t be surprised if next year they introduce a way to make and receive phone calls just by using the prosthetic’s thumb and index finger.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Wireless Charging System Juices Up Medical Implants, AT-AT Walker Created To Help 4-Year-Old Surgery Patient, 
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Touch Bionics’ i-limb prosthetic hand has advanced quite a bit in recent years, adding features like Bluetooth connectivity and upgraded fingers. Now the company has made available its latest revision, the i-limb ultra revolution, which offers powered thumb rotation for some added dexterity, as well as a new “biosim” app (iOS-only for now) that gives the wearer quick access to 24 different grip patterns in addition to diagnostic and training modes. Of course, the hand isn’t only controlled using a phone; as with previous models, it relies on muscle signals to shift into different pre-set patterns, which let the wearer perform a wide variety of actions. You can get a glimpse of some of those capabilities in the video after the break.
Source: Touch Bionics
Ever wanted a robotic hand? Well unless you’re a Terminator, or this guy, you probably don’t have one. Well, thanks to 3D printing, and the wonders of Kickstarter, you can soon own your own robot hand without breaking the bank.
Initially developed under the Anthromod project we mentioned last year, Christopher Chappell and Easton LaChapelle’s robot hand is now available for order via a Kickstarter campaign. The humanoid hand is designed to offer six degrees-of-freedom, including full movement of the thumb, four fingers and wrist. The arm is controlled using tendons, which are moved using five servos. The current design uses ABS plastic, but they are hopeful that future iterations will be produced using nylon, which is biocompatible, and safer for use in prostheses.
They’re targeting a sub-$1000 (USD) pricepoint for a completely functional robotic arm, significantly less than robotic arms being sold for medical and research purposes today. During the Kickstarter campaign (which runs through 5am EDT on 4/10/13) you can get a kit with complete electronics for the forearm, hand and fingers for £270 (~$411 USD). For £300 (~$467 USD), you can get a fully-assembled version, and for £600 (~$914 USD), you can upgrade to a version with a wireless control glove.
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